The Lucie Foundation is proud to launch a new Open Call:

ON THE BLOCK

2ND EDITION

A Street Photography Competition

WINNERS AND FINALISTS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED!

 

Lucie Foundation invites you to join us “on the block”, where stories unfold in the open and every corner hides unexpected beauty. ‘On the Block’ celebrates the unposed, unfiltered, and fleeting moments that define the art of documenting everyday life, whether in dense urban streets or sleepy rural towns. From street photography to urban landscape, this competition seeks images that reveal the quiet truths and vivid stories concealed beneath everyday moments.

Join us june 13th at house of Lucie los angeles for the opening reception of the winner and finalist group exhibition!

CANDID / COMMUNITY

Grand Prize Winner

Md Enamul Kabir: A Leap of Trust

In the urgency of a departing train, a baby is passed through a narrow window into unseen hands below. Suspended midair, the child becomes the fragile axis of a charged public space. This unposed moment reveals the quiet choreography of survival, trust, and collective instinct embedded in everyday transit where vulnerability and resilience coexist in a single breath.

Photo Credit: Joy K Roy

INTERVIEW WITH MD ENAMUL KABIR

This winning image ‘A Leap of Trust’, can you please tell us how you came about this moment you captured?

I had been at the station for several hours before this moment unfolded. It was the eve of Eid, and Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka was absolute chaos tens of thousands of people desperate to reach their families before the holiday. I positioned myself on an elevated vantage point to capture the scale of it all. Then I saw it a man leaning out of a window, reaching down for a small child in a green outfit, hands outstretched from below. Everything else fell away. I pressed the shutter instinctively. That single frame held everything I wanted to say about love, desperation, trust, and the human will to get home.

What inspires you to create an image or to start a photographic project?

I am drawn to stories that already exist around us ones hiding in plain sight, quietly waiting to be noticed. My inspiration most often comes from a place of discomfort. Social imbalance, human struggle, coexistence, survival these are the currents that pull me in. When a moment or a scene refuses to leave my mind, when it keeps returning to me long after I have walked away, that is how I know it is worth pursuing. That lingering feeling is my signal. That is when a project begins.

Where do you draw inspiration for your images?

My inspiration comes from everyday life from the streets, the public transport, the markets. These spaces are alive with tension, beauty, and contradiction all at once. Living in Bangladesh, immersed in its rhythms and realities, I have developed a particular way of observing people and situations always aware of what sits beneath the surface. I am inspired far more by reality than by imagination. The world as it actually exists has always been more than enough.

How do you approach storytelling through photography?

I think in layers’ emotion, context, and timing working together within a single frame. For me, a photograph succeeds when it suggests a story larger than what is immediately visible, when it opens a door rather than closes one. I never try to control a scene. Instead, I immerse myself in it completely and wait patiently for the moments that reveal human behavior in its most natural, unguarded state. Trust, conflict, resilience these are the narratives I am always searching for, and they only surface when people forget the camera is there.

Where are some of your favorite places to take photographs and why?

Dhaka will always be my first answer. It is overwhelming, contradictory, heartbreaking, and beautiful all at once. The old parts of the city (Puran Dhaka) where life spills onto every narrow street. The river Ghats at dawn. The railway stations during the great seasonal migrations. These places hold stories that the world does not yet fully know, and that responsibility drives me back again and again.

Can you tell us what other work you are photographing now or a project you will be starting in the near future?

I am currently working on a long-term documentary project focusing on the communities living along the banks of the Buriganga River in Dhaka, people whose entire existence is shaped by a river that is severely polluted yet remains their source of livelihood, identity, and survival. It is a story about contradiction how humans adapt to conditions that should be unlivable. I hope to spend the next two years with these communities, earning their trust and documenting their daily lives with the depth and honesty they deserve.

Anything else you wish to share with us?

Photography, for me, is not just visual it’s a way to question, to document, and to connect. I’m also part of ORDINARY COLLECTIVE where we support and challenge each other to tell deeper, more meaningful stories. Being part of this community helps me grow, exchange perspectives, and stay grounded in the purpose of storytelling. I believe stories from places like Bangladesh deserve global attention, and I want my work to contribute to that conversation.

Finalists

Thibault Gerbaldi: Weightless Morning
Away from urban centres, Balinese children often grow up in villages with limited infrastructure between rice paddies and jungle. The kite (layang-layang) plays a central role in their daily lives: a symbol of prosperity, a spiritual link to the gods, and a legacy of agricultural traditions. Made by families and celebrated each dry season during community festivals, it remains deeply woven into village life.

 

Todd Balcom: Dog Party at Dog Mountain, St. Johnsbury, Vermont
Summer dog party at Dog Mountain, a 150 acre dog park created by artist Stephen Huneck.

 

Daniel Bellman: The Young Lecturer
A little kid stands on the sidewalk addressing his peers like an orator giving an open-air lecture. The school children perched up on a sill react to the camera by hiding their faces and gesturing, as if to taunt the photographer for intruding on a lesson restricted to youngsters.

 

Sudeep Lal: Joy in Motion
Dressed in vibrant traditional attire, children and families enjoy a ride on a manually operated Ferris Wheel-a moment of pure delight captured during Eid celebrations.

 

Yasser Alaa Mobarak: Camel Market
A camel seller uses his phone on a foggy morning at Birqash Camel Market in Giza Governorate, Egypt.

 

Nicola Fioravanti: Tétouan, Morocco. 2023
In the narrow alleys of Tétouan’s medina, a young boy balances a yellow ball on the back of his neck, his face tilted downward. For a fleeting moment, the ball becomes his head, turning a simple game into something almost magical.

 

Lexi Negin: My America
Two Sikh Men look upon the Oakland Bay Bridge while they ride the Ferry to San Francisco.

 

Sara Camporesi: SALUMERIA FORMAGGI
Every image that surrounds us can be something new and reveal something about us that we didn’t know existed yet, going beyond the boundaries of our common imagination. Photography is neither a lesson nor an exercise, but a shared experience in which it is necessary to surrender. It is an opportunity to become familiar with and immerse ourselves in the beauty of things, where light reveals the unimaginable of everything we are used to seeing but never really look at. Photography teaches us to build new perimeters in which to give voice to needs and curiosity.

 

Niki Mustain: End of a Shift
A cook leans in the doorframe of the kitchen as the workday comes to a close.
Nuremburg, Germany

B / W

Category Winner

Thouly Dosios: Summer Frolicking

Chicago’s Crown Fountain on a hot afternoon sends ecstatic crowds running in a frenzy of screams and laughter. I am drawn to the girl in stylish polka-dots. While others get drenched, she always manages to survive the splash perfectly dry. I am taken by the sweet contradiction: although there’s nothing she seems to want more than to experience the thrill of getting soaked, she’s also terrified at the prospect and aborts the mission just in time, squeaking in dry delight. I’m mesmerized by the intensity of her experience, stirred by a primal memory of exhilarating joy, the kind a child can feel.

Finalists

Annemarie Jung: Man in the window
in small Dutch window, in a sidealley

 

Jason Au: Shadow Play
A lamp post casts a soft glow over a quiet crosswalk at night, its light stretching the shadows of a lone pedestrian and nearby traffic lights across the textured facade of a building. The elongated silhouettes create a striking contrast against the wall, adding cinematic depth to the urban scene and evoking a sense of fleeting movement.

 

Vin Sharma: Wild Things
On our annual family road trip, just as my children were beginning to understand what ‘independence’ means, we stopped for a break somewhere between Kansas City and Dallas, Texas. An open field suddenly became an invitation to run….and they certainly did run.
Untamed, wind-brushed, utterly their own. This is where a roadside became the stage for an unscripted moment.
The quiet joy of freedom – a testament to memories of youth, is where the ‘street’ is not only a location, but a lived experience.

 

Parvathi Kumar: Of Olives and Ovals
I had randomly wandered into the olive section of a bustling market in Derb Sultan, an old neighborhood of Casablanca, Morocco. I immediately noticed a woman with an oval-patterned headscarf that echoed the shape of the olives she was purchasing! It was such an uncanny and unexpected find! Without any hesitation, I raised my camera to capture the moment! I simply couldn’t resist!

 

Virginia Hines: Tianjin
Shot at night, a plastic curtain both conceals and reveals a small business in Tianjin, China.

 

Anna Consilia Alemanno: AMOR DEUS
According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Group (UNSDG), 24% of the world’s urban population lives in slums, favelas, or informal settlements. Bairro de Boa Esperança, on the outskirts of Sal Rei — the main town on the island of Boa Vista, Cape Verde — is one of these places: a community where families live in precarious housing and social conditions, in the shadow of the island’s thriving tourism industry.

 

Rolando Cabrera: Archive Habana
The series proposes a visual diary where personal experience is intertwined with the fractures of a country like Cuba in crisis. Each image functions as an affective record of recent changes in my life, marked by accumulated absences. I gather these fragments as an emotional archive of resistance. Through an intimate look, the project turns the domestic environment and the city into a place of political and social reflection. Together, the images draw a map of survival that asks what endures when everything seems to fade.

 

Xavier Cristau: Champs-Elysées Paris
What do all the people we encounter around us say? What do they say about the wear and tear of daily life and the struggle to survive?
I hope my images remain enigmatic, that by capturing a brief moment of someone somewhere, they create the illusion of having frozen in time on these people who surround us unseen, and who, together, constitute a part of ourselves.

 

Antonio Denti: The Block From the Sea
Catania is a city on the sea. But because of the peculiar physical conformation of the land on which it rests – a coastline of tall lavic cliffs – the much life that goes on its long and rugged waterfront is largely invisible from the city. It is an intimate, important part of life of the block – particularly for kids growing up and testing the borders of the self and the world – but to see it one must dive in the sea and watch block from the sea. Only from the sea, one can take the most intimate looks on the city of Catania.

PORTRAIT

Category Winner

Nina Papiorek

A candid portrait taken in Copenhagen, Denmark

Nina Papiorek

A candid portrait taken in Copenhagen, Denmark

Finalists

Christian Lee: Boy Near Fence, Crenshaw, 2025
A boy is perched near a fence lining his home in the heart of Crenshaw, South Los Angeles, scrolling through Instagram reels on a warm Spring day. The portrait is from “”Between Suns,”” a forthcoming book published by KGP Monolith in April 2026, marking 22-year-old photographer Christian Lee’s first major monograph.

 

Britta Kohl-Boas: Boy with a scar
“Boy with a Scar” was taken in Bath, England, as part of my project As the Crows Fly.
In the summer of 2023, I spent two months traveling through UK, from the south-western to the north-eastern point of the country: 603 miles “as the crows fly.” I was interested in my “”reflected inventory”” of UK after BREXIT.
Bath is a city steeped in tradition. On that day, I photographed pupils, teachers, parents and guests of honour gathered in the city centre in front of the cathedral to celebrate their school’s Foundation Day.

 

Irina Levental: Lady in White
Candid street portrait of a woman walking with her bag left open.

 

Alexander Klang: Judy, Brooklyn
Analogportrait of Judy on Johnson Ave in Bushwick/NY

 

Philip Tomlinson: Gaza Protester
Captured during a Gaza solidarity march in Bristol, this shot benefited from a brief window of perfect light. As the sun streamed between two buildings, it illuminated a protester’s face just long enough for me to release the shutter before the moment dissolved.

 

Ari Espay: Woman and a hair comb
Portrait of a Hmong woman in Laos.

 

Michael Schenker: Strangers in the Park
Strangers in the Park is a series of large format, black and white portraits of total strangers. Shot predominantly in NYC’s Washington Square Park in 2025, the project has given me the opportunity to meet and get to know all kinds of people that I would normally never encounter. While the portraits hopefully convey the character of my subject, the journey of taking each picture is for me the path to humanistic appreciation.

 

Cesidio Silla: Ada e Annaide
Anna e Annaide sono state tra le ultime donne ad ad aver indossato per tutta la loro vita il costume tradizionale di Scanno. Attualmente, ad indossare abitualmente il costume scannese, è rimasta una sola donna ultranovantenne.

 

Isaac Ceja: Anaheim Lovers
From a distance, the two were holding one another and laughing at every word which drew me in. Even when I made their portrait their comfort and playfulness with one another remained.

STILL-LIFE/ LANDSCAPE

Category Winner

Mario Schneider: Jump

The silent solitude of the landscape meets a young girl. The land seems to belong to her. She is fearless. Are we afraid for her? Is she braver than me?

Finalists

Thibault Belouis: Dias Tras Dias
The image is from the series Dias Tras Días, which is the result of an eleven-month journey carried out between 2023 and 2025, from Peru to Alaska. In the manner of a travel journal, Dias Tras Días develops a subjective photographic language, nourished by the legacy of documentary photography. The body of work includes analog images in black and white and in color, collected day by day. The visual narrative is built from non-events, revealing the beauty of the mundane. Human figures often appear anonymous, almost ghostly, blending into empty or deserted landscapes.

 

Lena Konstantakou: The Magic Tree
The Magic Tree’ shows an old Phoenician juniper found at the end of a hidden path in Rafina, my neighborhood, east of Athens. I discovered it after returning home from living in London for many years, during a time when I felt lost and disconnected. The tree became a point of stillness in my daily walks, blocking noise, speed, and routine. Its strong yet gentle form stands quietly in the landscape, reminding us that nature can offer grounding, memory, and moments of magic within ordinary places.

 

Christopher San Nicolas: To God
Huntington Beach, CA – Oct 2024
Hunting Beach’s annual Air Show was plagued with a dense marine layer of fog and the fallout of a government shutdown grounding many military acts. Despite this, the event went on and a crowd still gathered to enjoy the stunt flyers and listen for the jet engines. We heard a fighter jet on approach and in a rare moment where the fog broke, I made this photograph framing the aircraft above the pier with a sign of a street preacher in the foreground.

 

James Kostecky: Duplicity
This image was created walking around the Central Business District of downtown New Orleans after a rainstorm. The reflection of the window light creates a visual complexity for the viewer, requiring a few minutes to stop and inspect the image a bit more to fully understand what is going on. I think this image provides a strong narrative for New Orleans as the city is very complex and requires further introspection to fully appreciate the beauty of it.

 

Antonio Rosato: URBAN CASUAL
URBAN CASUAL is an ongoing project on 35mm film that collects unexpected shots from my travels around Europe, capturing architecture, stories I’ve spied, colors, perspectives—whatever caught my eye.
URBAN CASUAL is a completely spontaneous project, driven solely by instinct, an act of wanting to crystallize the situation I was experiencing.

 

Shawn Moreton: Ice Shack
The Ice Shack project is a visual exploration of the solitary and timeless tradition of ice fishing shacks on Canada’s frozen lakes and rivers. Set against vast, minimal landscapes, these structures embody a quiet beauty and cultural significance, evoking isolation, nostalgia, and a deep sense of belonging to place. Each shack marks a return: to familiar ice, to memory, and to a way of life shaped by season and repetition.

 

Billy Ray: Bronx Snow
Evening Snow in the Bronx

 

Conrad Saya Reina: Dance of the Scaffold Walkers
Perhaps every second of every day some powerful force manifests itself, and we just have to be aware of it and express it through photography.

 

Greg Gulbransen: HOLDING THE LINE
After spending the night on a mountain in rural West Virginia, I carefully drove down the steep, muddy road and saw this scene. The poetry of the trees, the winding road, the mist, and the leaning pole holding the lines caught my attention and hit my soul. I remember taking the image, then just standing there in awe.

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SUBMITTED

GRAND PRIZE / ONE WINNER:
Winner will be the photograph with the highest score overall in any category. 

◦ Featured interview on the Lucie Foundation website
◦ Part of Lucie Foundation Online Exhibition for competition
◦ Cash prize $1,000
◦ 16×20″ print of the Winning Image from Paper and Ink Studio (printed and shipped worldwide)
◦ Pick of one (1) Lucie Honoree Poster (unsigned edition)

CATEGORY WINNERS / 3 WINNERS:
Winners will be the highest score in the remaining categories. Categories remaining will depend on Grand Prize winner. 

◦ Part of Lucie Foundation Online Exhibition for competition
◦ Cash prize $250
◦ 16×20″ print of the Winning Image from Paper and Ink Studio (printed and shipped worldwide)
◦ Pick of one (1) Lucie Honoree poster (unsigned edition)

MEET THE JURY

Paris Chong

Gallery Director, Leica Gallery Los Angeles

Paris Chong is the Gallery Director of the prestigious Leica Gallery Los Angeles. With over two decades of experience as a Curator she has represented galleries and artists at events including Photo LA, Photo SF, Paris Photo, Paris Photo LA and The Palm Springs Photo Festival in addition to promoting Leica Gallery Los Angeles at international shows such as Art Basel and Photo Paris.

Ms. Chong has also served as a respected and sought-after portfolio reviewer for Recontres d’ Arles, Photoville, FotoFest, reFocus Awards, Photlucida, Women Street Photographers, PISPA, Rome Photo Lab and the ongoing Meet the Curator portfolio reviews for Leica Akademie USA.

With her extensive involvement in the art community, Ms. Chong’s duties over the many years have also seen her coordinating both intimate and large group events at Leica Camera’s flagship store in West Hollywood. Celebrated artists range from the legendary Henri Cartier Bresson and Sebastiao Salgado to contemporary powerhouse names such as Neal Preston, Julian Lennon, Lenny Kravitz, Maggie Steber, Mary Ellen Mark and Ralph Gibson to name a few.

Ms. Chong has also found time to give back to the community on multiple levels such as serving as a Board Member for The Foundation for The Aids Monument (FAM), a non-profit that formed a memorial monument in West Hollywood and The West Hollywood Design District (WHDD).

Further to her philanthropic side, Ms. Chong also Curates still life photography showings for The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) at its historic Hollywood headquarters.

Photo by Manfred Baumann

Arturo Soto

Photographer, Writer, and Educator

Arturo Soto is a Mexican photographer, writer and educator. He has published the photobooks In the Heat (2018), A Certain Logic of Expectations (2021), and Border Documents (2025). Soto holds a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Oxford, an MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York, an MA in Art History from University College London, and undergraduate degrees in Film and Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He curated the exhibition Foreign Correspondence at London’s Architectural Association and participated in the first edition of Forecast Platform at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in the books Decolonization and Diversity in Contemporary Photography, Imaginaria and the Subjective Atlas of Mexico. Soto’s critical writing has been published in VII Insider, C4 Journal, Photo-Eye, Photomonitor, Elephant, Objektiv, and ASX. He lives in Los Angeles.

Matt Stuart

I am not sure which came first, being nosey or an interest in “street photography”, but a fascination with people and the way they live their lives is why I enjoy the business so much.

I can’t hide behind lights and technology, I am reliant on a small camera, patience and lots of optimism. But what I get in return is the chance to make an honest picture that people know immediately is a genuine moment and which hopefully burrows deep into their memories.

FAQ

Who can apply?
Anyone can apply worldwide. All mediums of photography are acceptable. All submissions must be within the theme and loose framework of street photography. Street photography is a broad and encapsulating category and does not have to fit within the traditional concept of street photography. We encourage and accept experimental works.
Is there a limit to the number of Open Call submissions per artist?
No, you can submit as many images as you would like to however each image is a separate fee.
Is there a submission fee? 
Yes, $20.00 per submission (single image), 20% discount to submit the same image in multiple categories. Discount will be automatically applied at checkout.
What images should I submit?
Submit the best images you feel represent the themes and ideals behind street photography within the category of your choosing.
Can I submit AI images?
At this time, we do not accept AI generated images as part of the competition.
How should I prepare my files?
Please prepare your files according to the specifications below:
JPG only (NO TIF, GIF, PNG, PDF files will be accepted.)
Can I send print materials, books or CD’s?
No, Lucie Foundation accepts online submissions only.
When will the prize winners and finalists be announced? 
Winners and finalists will be announced by email in April 2026.
How will I know if I was selected? 
If you were selected for the Open Call, you will be contacted directly through the email which you provided in the submission form. The finalists will also be announced via the Lucie Foundation newsletter, website, and social media. Unfortunately, due to the volume of submissions, we are not able to notify if you were not selected.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR

Ilford Photo

As one of the earliest adopters of digital imaging technology for the photographic and commercial wide format printing markets, ILFORD has been at the forefront of innovation in the industry, demonstrating the ability to design products in line with changing technologies.

Experience is paramount and ILFORD has used its knowledge to fine-tune its core competencies to excel in producing innovative products over the years.

As a result, ILFORD is one of the only companies in the world to offer its customers a ‘best in class’ solution for producing outstanding printed images and displays, regardless of their application.

Our team continues to develop technical building blocks to ensure that ILFORD can respond directly to any step change in technology.

The ILFORD name is well established in the history of imaging and today continues to be associated with cutting edge technology thanks to its strong links to the photographic and commercial wide format printing markets, research and development, technical know-how and manufacturing capabilities.

Paper & Ink Studio

Based in Missoula, Montana, Paper & Ink Studio is a fine-art print house that has been printing for artists and commercial clients since 2016. With over two decades of professional printing experience, exhibition presentation and artist mentoring, our goal is to help bring into the print form the creative vision and intention of our clients.

USE & OWNERSHIP:
The photographer must be the sole author and owner of the copyright of photos entered in to the competition. Copyright and all other rights remain that of the photographer. Any photograph used by Lucie Foundation shall carry the photographer’s credit line and will not be used for any other purposes other than the exhibition and promotional material for the exhibition including online and through social media and email newsletters. Images may be displayed on the Lucie Foundation website and social media platforms for promotion of the Open Call.
For additional questions, please contact: info@luciefoundation.org