1st Place Award in the “Birth” category (Spring 2021). Photo by Davide Preti (Italy).

Birth – Award Gallery

Single photographs that explore the full birth experience including pregnancy, pregnancy loss, the full birthing process and postpartum.

We are proud to share with you the award-winning photographs from our 9th international competition celebrating the very best in documentary family photography.

Award winners were chosen during the final round of judging recorded live from our three judges locations at the time in Berlin (Germany), Florida (USA) and California (USA). The final round of judging in its entirety was subsequently streamed online over three days on June 28-30, 2021. Viewers had the opportunity to watch the unfiltered discussions and constructive feedback as winners were collectively chosen by esteemed judges Song Tae Chong (United States), Kristin M. Young (United States) and CW Griffin (United States).

The following award-winning photographs have been through two rounds of critical review and selection.

Congratulations to the winners!

Top 10 awarded photographs by Davide Preti, Ashley Marston, Melissa Helmick, Adriana Costa, Kate Randall, Camila Mendonça, Deborah Ghelman, Kate Randall, Priscilla Mondo and Roberta Ruela.

Honorable Mention photograph by Agata Szymanowicz.

(click or tap an image to view award details)

Our preliminary round guest judges evaluated every single submission we received and selected thirty or less of their favourite photographs per category to move forward to the live-judging round as finalists. Our deepest thanks to Manu Rigoni (Brazil), Mikaela Martin (United States) and Ranita Roy (India) for their hours of dedication during this process. Congratulations to these photographers who were nominated as finalists for consideration during the final round of live judging.

Finalist photographs by Adriana Costa, Amalya Shandelman, Ana Carolina De Almeida, Ana Matijaca, Angie Gray, Anne Lucy Barbosa, Ashley Marston, Camila Mendonça, Colby Tulachanh, Deborah Ghelman, Emanuel Lopes Cortes Santos, Erin Heuser, Gaby Sweet, Giovanna Guiotti, Gretchen Yost, Hanna Hill-Destigter, Huan Deng, Jacque Jackson, Jessica Rinehart, Joni Pereira, Kaleen Enke, Karoline Saadi, Luciana Zenti, Marcia Friese, Marcos Paulo, Mariana Leal, Melissa Helmick, Mia Davies, Mirella Lukens, Nadia Stone, Nayra Bezerra, Priscilla Mondo, Rafael Rosa, Rhiannon Lloyd-Hughes, Rianna Cross, Sara Paolucci and Simona Dietiker.

(click or tap image collage to a view larger )

Re-watch the judging for this category

Stream on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast.

The spring 2021 call for entries was made possible with support from the following sponsors:

The Documentary Family Awards is an international competition in search of the insightful and meaningful ways that documentary photographers explore the interpretation of family.