The Siena Awards revealed the winners of its Creative Photo Awards 2024 photography competition. Photographer Lurdes Santander was honored for her grand prize-winning photo above, Dreaming Above the Universe.

The Siena Creative Photo Awards 2024 winners round out the Siena Awards’ three international photo contests, including the Siena International Photo Awards and the Drone Photo Awards winners featured earlier this week.

Santander’s winning photo is part of her series, “Animals Under the Stars.” The winning photo shows a mother bear with three cubs resting beneath the Milky Way. Santander, a Spanish photographer, works in the radiology department at a local hospital. She has been a passionate photographer since she asked for a camera for her ninth birthday and has long used photography to bring attention to nature and wildlife.

Alongside Santander’s overall winning photo, the Siena Creative Photo Awards named winners across numerous categories: Animals and Pets, Architecture, Fine Art, Nature and Landscape, Open Theme, People, and Series.

Denisa Zbranková Albaniová took top honors in the Animals and Pets category for the King of Mordor image. The photo shows a white Swiss Shepherd against dark basalt rocks, reminiscent of a white wizard from Tolkien’s famous book series against the dark land of Mordor.

Anna Wacker’s photo, Storm on the Elbe, won the Architecture category. The abstract photo shows Hamburg, Germany’s Elhphilharmonie concert hall rising above the Elbe River and Hafencity district. The image uses the concert hall’s iconic roof to recreate waves on the river.

Alena Grom’s jarring portrait of a Ukrainian woman against the backdrop of her war-ravaged home won the Fine Art category. “Every day, I encounter people who are rebuilding their cities and personal lives from the ruins, looking toward the future with hope. The heroes of my photographs are women who have become victims of Russian aggression,” Grom says.

In the Nature and Landscape category, Dileep Ss won for the image, Worlds Apart, which shows a desert ecosystem against a towering city skyline. The photographer explains that the striking contrast between natural beauty and a vast city is a powerful reminder to look beyond modernity and embrace nature.

Pepe Manzanilla’s enchanting image, Magical Realm, won the Open Theme category. The otherworldly image features a small doll against a nighttime forest ripe with fireflies.

Agnieszka Ostrowska’s photo, Fitting In, took top honors in the People category. She says her image represents the “isolation and discomfort” a person might feel when trying to fit into a new, hostile environment, such as starting a new job, making new friends, or moving to a different country.

Rounding out this year’s winners is Ivo Danchev, whose Kukerland series won the aptly named Series category. “Bulgaria boasts an incredible diversity of masks and costumes, preserved through the ancient tradition of Kukeri. These masks are used to conceal the wearer’s identity and transform them into supernatural creatures, allowing them to enter the spirit world, chase away evil, and bring blessings to people, livestock, and crops,” the Siena Awards explains. Danchev’s photos are featured in a book project of the same name, Kukerland. Additional images from the series are available to view on the Siena Creative Photo Awards website.

In addition to category winners, the Siena Awards also named second-place and commended finishers in each category. All the awarded photos are available on the Creative Photo Awards 2024 website.

The winners of the Siena International Photo Awards, Drone Photo Awards, and Creative Photo Awards are all featured in an ongoing exhibition in Siena, Italy. The festival runs until November 24th.

Image credits: Siena Creative Photo Awards 2024. Individual photographers are credited in the image captions.