We’re delighted to share with you the Finalists for the 2026 AOP Student Awards. These annual awards never fail to present an exciting range of diverse and vibrant talent from students across the UK and representing a number of different UK photography courses.
"Our annual AOP Student Awards are acknowledged as an industry standard for identifying the next generation of talent. This year our professional judges have had a herculean task whittling down the finalists for our 2026 AOP Student Awards, and I’m genuinely impressed with their selection of still and moving images. Whether it’s people, places or things as the categories, the undiluted visual perspectives from this year’s finalists shows confidence and consideration for the subject matters they’ve photographed; some challenging our perspectives, others celebrating authenticity. We looking forward to celebrating their achievements and look forward to seeing where they head.”
“It was a genuinely difficult decision, I found myself going back and forth between the finalists more than once. The standard made choosing a real challenge, with entries at a very high level. Significant thought and curation went into the series, and the standalone pieces were equally impressive. Many themes address subjects of great importance and relevance in modern society. I hope the students continue to enter their work into other competitions; I firmly believe there are more success stories within what was submitted.”
“The category I was judging this year was ‘Places’ and it was heartening to see the diversity of responses to the theme. There were some wonderfully creative approaches to the subject matter which showed maturity and self reflection.”
I honestly found my category incredibly hard to judge as the theme and resulting content was so very diverse. The varied strength of singular images versus wider series submissions was really interesting and so I decided to focus on submissions where each image was equally strong and engaging. As ever when I assess imagery, I also wanted to feel an emotional, visceral response to the entires, which is how I eventually chose the gold and silver winners.
The AOP Photography Awards are known as the ‘Oscars’ of the photography world. They celebrate excellence in the creative photography and image-making industry.
This is your chance to be seen by leading commissioners and names within the photographic industry.
Check out our 39th AOP Awards FINALISTS and WINNERS
