"Freelance photojournalist" The first place award will be awarded equally to two projects in: "Exposure 2026"
Sharjah, 1st February / WAM / The jury of the tenth edition of the International Photography Festival “Xposure 2026” announced that photographer Josh Edelson for the project “Inferno: California Is Burning” and photographer Nicole Tang for the project “Ukraine: The Shortest Goodbye” won first place equally in the “Independent Photojournalist Award”.
The announcement came during an official ceremony held yesterday evening as part of the festival, where His Excellency Tariq Saeed Allay, Director General of the Sharjah Government Media Office, handed over the awards to the winners, and photographer James Clark received the award on behalf of photographer Nicole Tang, in the presence of a crowd of media figures, photographers, and those interested in artistic affairs, coinciding with the honoring of the winners within the “Lens of the World” program at the same ceremony.
The winners were chosen from a short list that included eight projects that qualified for the final stage. The two photographers deserved the award in recognition of their project, which monitored major transformations on the international and environmental arenas. Josh Edelson’s project “Hell: California is on Fire” documented the catastrophic effects and harsh environmental transformations resulting from fires in the American state, while Nicole Tang embodied in her project “Ukraine: The Shortest Goodbye” the human dimensions during wars and crises.
Her Excellency Alia Bu Ghanim Al Suwaidi, Director of the Sharjah Government Media Office, honored, within the “Lens of the World” program, 6 photographers and 6 female photographers, one male and one female photographer, from six continents of Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Oceania, in an initiative that confirms the role of the festival as a global cultural bridge that brings together peoples through images and presents visual narratives that start from the local context to address the common human conscience globally.
From Africa, the festival honored the Nigerian photographer Oyewole Lawal for the project “The Unknown Protectors of the Environment,” the Egyptian photographer Amina Quddus for “White Gold,” and from Asia the Chinese photographer Kitchun Zhang for “Sorrows of the Yellow River,” the Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Al-Ouf for “Outside Gaza,” and from Europe the Slovenian photographer Cyril Jasbek for “Between the Brightness of Light and the Whiteness of Snow,” and the photographer Svet Jacquelin for “When the Smoke Dissipates.”
The honors were received from North America by Canadian photographer Amber Bracken for “Diaries of Wet’suwet’en Resistance,” Mexican photographer Felix Márquez for “Waitings Without a Destination,” and from Australia and Oceania, photographer Alethea Casey for “The Lost Land,” and photographer Joel Benguigi for “Out of Context,” and from South America, Peruvian photographer Alessandro Chenco for “The Price of the Land… Who Pays the Cost?” Along with Peruvian photographer Ana Sotelo for the project “Multipolar World”.
The Independent Photojournalist Award, along with the Lens of the World Program, embodies Xposure’s commitment to giving contemporary humanitarian and environmental issues a global dimension, enhancing Sharjah’s position as an international center for cultural and creative dialogue through images and highlighting the power of visual narrative in conveying human experiences through the lenses of photographers from all over the world.
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