Judges Choice Award - Photo Series “The fabulous destiny of Dainaly“ by Liliana Ranalletta, Italy.

Gallery: Judges Choice Awards

Category: Judges Choice Awards

We are proud to share with you the award-winning photographs from our 6th international competition celebrating the very best in documentary family photography.

For the following awarded images and series, we asked each of our preliminary round guest judges to choose one photograph and one series out of all the submissions that stood out as personal favourites.

Selected by Cristal Wallin (United States), Rowena Meadows (Australia) and Zalmy Berkowitz (United States) (judges pictured above).

Judges Choice Singles

Judges Choice Series

Selected by Cristal Wallin

Grandma’s Ear

Photo Series by Da Huang, China.

Photographer’s description: Grandma had a surgery of basal cell carcinoma. She was anxious, prayed before surgery, and relaxed after. She played cellphone all the time like young people. She is great.

Judges Choice Series

Selected by Rowena Meadows

The fabulous destiny of Dainaly

Photo Series by Liliana Ranalletta, Italy.

Photographer’s description: Dainaly, twenty-four, is an autistic girl, born and grown in a circus family. She loves the Circus, it is her home, made up of dreams and colors. Here the characters of her universe can come to life, here her fantasy can weave her plots, only here Dainaly is not alone, always surrounded by the affection of her loved ones. The Circus, that world where everything seems fake, becomes the universe of the possibilities, unconditioned theater, where Dainaly can decline the subtle nuances of her imaginative universe, so impenetrable and sometimes indecipherable and secret, yet still made of disarming fragility and sweetness. For two years I follow Dainaly, with patience and with the help of her family, I came in contact with her everyday life, made of little daily gestures, of her special relationship with the animals and with the members of her circus family. Her mother often tells me “Dainaly is love and receives love”. I understand that love is the only possible key to decipher the intricate weave of her way to engage with her loved ones and with the rest of the world.

Judges Choice Series

Selected by Zalmy Berkowitz

Kaparot 2 – (6-8.10.2019)

Photo Series by Hezy Holzman, Israel.

Photographer’s description: (Kaparot – means ‘atonements’). According to Jewish belief, rotating a chicken three times over a person’s head, while reciting a prayer – the sins the person had committed during the past year are passed on to the bird, thus releasing the person from his sins. At the end, the birds are slaughtered, and the poor are given the meat or its price.

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