What is the POY Latam?
POY Latam was created in 2011 by Pablo Corral Vega and Loup Langton to celebrate excellence in documentary photography in Latin America. Over the years, it has established itself as the most important non-profit competition in the region, with a unique feature: a public, open, and transparent judging process that turns each edition into a living school of photography.
More than an award, POY Latam is a space for meeting and learning. Through competitions, exhibitions, workshops, and publications, it promotes the talent of thousands of photographers and visual creators, defending human dignity, memory, and the diversity of our societies.
On this page, you will find the gallery of POY Latam 2025 winners, a visual testimony to the strength, creativity, and commitment of those who tell the stories that define our region.
POY Latam is the most important documentary photography contest in Latin America.
celebrates excellence in photography and connects visual creators in the region. We are proud to promote a platform that highlights the stories that define and enrich our diverse and kaleidoscopic identity.
The numbers
In its 2025 edition, POY Latam received 20.732 images submitted by more than 1.155 visual creators from all Ibero-American countries. The public deliberations, broadcast live, were followed by tens of thousands of people through our streaming platforms, confirming that POY Latam is not just a contest, but a space for collective learning and a true community around documentary photography.
20.732
IMages
+1155
PHOTOGRAPHERS
The next edition of POY Latam will be in 2027.
POY Latam is a biannual competition that, since its creation in 2011, has been held in different cities and countries in Latin America, becoming a benchmark for documentary photography in the region.
Since 2021, the competition has been held in a virtual format, allowing judges and technicians from multiple countries to come together and share their deliberations with an increasingly wider audience. The 2025 edition attracted tens of thousands of followers around the world, confirming POY Latam as an open school, a meeting place, and a vibrant community centered around the image.
Our main contest
Pictures of the Year International (POY), was created in 1944 by the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism. Its photojournalism program is the oldest in the world and one of the most respected.
Transparent judgment
The POY Latam judging process is broadcast live, making it one of the few competitions in the world with a policy of total transparency and openness. All decisions are made in a reasoned manner and under the watchful eye of the community.
Advisory Council
The most important decisions are made as a collegiate body. The council is constituted by Gael Almeida, Angela Berlinde, Maíra Gamarra, Manuel Ortiz, Yinna Higuera, Gisela Volá, and Tiago Santana
The current director
The current director is Pablo Corral Vega, Ecuadorian photojournalist, lawyer, writer, artist, and cultural manager who has published his work in National Geographic magazine and other international publications. He is the author of eight books.
How much does it cost to participate?
It is completely free for photographers thanks to the generous contributions of several sponsors. POY Latam is a non-profit project.
Mission and Vision
Connecting visual creators in Ibero-America and building communities through art and documentary photography. Promoting a deep understanding of the essential issues facing humanity, always respecting human dignity and reflecting the richness and complexity of our histories.
To make POY Latam the most influential platform for documentary photography in Latin America, an open and educational space that projects the voices of the region to the world, strengthening democracy, cultural diversity, and collective memory through the power of images.
The New York Times
This enthusiasm reveals much about the rapidly changing world of photojournalism in Latin America. When Mr. Corral and Mr. Langton met 20 years ago, a photojournalist in Quito, Ecuador, often didn’t even know other photojournalists in neighboring cities. Photographers in Latin American countries worked mostly alone, often learning about their own countries from European and United States-born photographers whose images graced the covers of glossy international magazines.
Julie Turkewitz
© Kita Wichhu “Posthumans and cyborg dreams of + beings in the Andes” is a visual essay that began in 2023 in the department of La Paz, Bolivia, based in its highland villages and the city of El Alto.
Al Jazeera
Latin American photography is too broad to be defined in general terms. However, there are some common trends throughout the region. Pablo Corral Vega, Ecuadorian co-founder of POY Latam, believes that contemporary photojournalism in the region is breaking with traditional ways of seeing. One trend is the blurring of the usual separation between art and journalism. Documentary photography highlights the urgent problems affecting society, but a young generation is reinventing the way images tell the story of the world and what photojournalism consists of. Moving freely between journalism and aesthetic photography, they blur the conventional boundaries between art and news.
Manuela Picq
Message from the Director
POY Latam would not be possible without the generous and committed work of those who make it happen. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the judges for this edition, who devoted countless hours to viewing, discussing, and reflecting on thousands of images with rigor, sensitivity, and respect. I would also like to thank the moderators and technical team, whose work was marathon-like and precise, ensuring that each deliberation reached the entire community with transparency. My gratitude also extends to the Advisory Council, a group of colleagues and friends who accompany every strategic decision made by POY Latam and ensure that this project is built as a collegial, open, and pluralistic body. And, of course, to the photographers and visual creators of Ibero-America who entrusted their work to this space: you are the heart of POY Latam.
The 2025 judging was, as always, a shared learning experience. Over several days, we listened to the judges debate what it means to narrate everyday life, record the news, portray people, redefine memory, and experiment with new visual languages. There were disagreements and consensus, doubts and certainties, but above all there was a clear conviction: photography continues to be an essential tool for understanding ourselves as societies. Each category became a window through which to see ourselves from within and also to recognize ourselves in the gaze that our photographers project onto the world.
Why is POY Latam important, and why should we continue with it? Because this contest is not just an award ceremony: it is an educational process, open and transparent, that strengthens our visual community. Because it offers a space for recognition and collective learning, where the judges’ experience and public deliberations become a learning experience for everyone. And because, at a time when democracy, human rights, and the environment face growing threats, we need more than ever honest, critical, and profound images that remind us of what is at stake.
POY Latam 2025 confirmed once again that Ibero-American photography is in full swing: diverse, bold, committed. That vitality drives us forward. Continuing with POY Latam is, at its core, an act of faith in the power of images to build memory, defend human dignity, and pave the way toward a more just future.
Pablo Corral Vega
The 2025 Winners
The award-winning images of the 2025 edition, with their authors and the public deliberations that chose them.