Power is often imagined as spectacle—eruption, collision, dominance. Yet the latest edition of the Hamdan International Photography Award (HIPA) suggests something far more nuanced. Under the theme Power, photographers from across the globe were invited to interpret strength, endurance, and force in all their forms. The result is a body of work that resists simplification, presenting power as elemental, emotional, and quietly persistent.

With a total prize pool of $1 million, HIPA remains one of the most influential platforms in contemporary photography. This year’s winners demonstrate why: their images move beyond technical mastery toward something rarer—clarity of vision.

Nature Unleashed: Gianluca Gianferrari and Mount Etna

Italian photographer Gianluca Gianferrari claimed the grand prize with a commanding nocturnal image of Mount Etna mid-eruption. Shot at night, the photograph captures rivers of incandescent lava slicing through darkness, transforming the volcano into a living architecture of fire.

What distinguishes the image is restraint. There are no human figures, no foreground drama—only geological force in its purest state. The judges praised its precision, noting how Gianferrari allows scale and light to do the work. The photograph reads as a meditation on planetary power: ancient, indifferent, and impossible to negotiate with.

The Power of Survival: Hashem Dardowra’s Human Focus

Where Gianferrari turns to the immensity of nature, Syrian photographer Hashem Dardowra locates power within the human face. His first-place image in the Power category depicts a young boy standing amid the ruins of conflict. The surrounding devastation is unmistakable, yet Dardowra refuses to sensationalize it.

Instead, the photograph centers on the boy’s expression—steady, alert, unbroken. By narrowing the emotional frame, Dardowra reframes power as resilience rather than destruction. The image suggests that endurance itself can be a form of force, one that persists long after explosions fade.

Energy, Motion, and the Invisible Forces

Other award-winning works expand the theme into scientific and kinetic realms. Indian photographer Deepak Singh Dogra offers a strikingly detailed image of the sun’s surface, revealing roiling textures and intense luminosity. The photograph compresses unimaginable scale into a single frame, reminding viewers that life on Earth is sustained by a distant, volatile engine of energy.

Australian photographer Scott Portelli, awarded third place, captures power in motion with an underwater photograph of penguins accelerating through the sea. Trails of bubbles trace their velocity, turning movement into visible evidence of force. The image balances grace and efficiency, highlighting how power in nature is often optimized rather than aggressive.

A Global Vocabulary of Strength

Across color, black-and-white, wildlife, landscape, and sports categories, the winning photographs form a surprisingly cohesive portrait of contemporary power. Wildlife images emphasize instinct and physical presence. Landscapes dwell on scale and atmospheric pressure. Sports photography freezes moments of total exertion, where control and vulnerability coexist.

What unites these works is intention. None rely on excess. Instead, they reveal power through precision—through what is shown, and what is deliberately left out.

Power as a Shared Experience

HIPA’s “Power” winners ultimately present strength not as a singular idea, but as a shared human and planetary condition. Whether expressed through erupting volcanoes, enduring children, solar turbulence, or animal motion, power emerges as something we witness, endure, and respond to.

In an era saturated with images, these photographs stand apart by refusing spectacle for its own sake. They remind us that true power often lies in clarity—in seeing the world, and ourselves, with unwavering focus.