From Gaza’s ruins to global wonders: Siena Photo Awards 2025 winners

Muska, 14, returned to Jalalabad from Pakistan in February 2024, where she once attended school. Now facing restrictions under Taliban rule, she dreams of continuing her education. The image is part of Canadian-Iranian photographer Kiana Hayeri’s solo show No Woman’s Land at the Siena Awards Festival 2025.

Caribou graze near Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska, in April 2021. The Nunamiut community lies on traditional migration routes of the Western Arctic and Teshekpuk herds. Climate breakdown has halved the populations of caribou in recent decades. Photographer Katie Orlinsky has chronicled the lives of Arctic indigenous peoples for over 10 years.

A child recoils as older boys play with toy guns in Al-Amari refugee camp, 2009. Pulitzer Prize-winning Jordanian photojournalist Muhammed Muheisen has spent decades documenting the toll of conflict on children. His Siena Awards 2025 show at La Tenaia captures fragile smiles, resilience and everyday life amid war.

Eliana, 22, a Venezuelan migrant, clutches her three-year-old daughter as she confronts a National Guard soldier blocking her at a razor-wire fence on the Rio Grande, El Paso, 2024. Photographer Adrees Latif’s Siena Awards 2025 project explores the fragile border between hope and despair along the US-Mexico frontier.

Fruit trees grow inside makeshift tents, a striking fusion of nature and human ingenuity. The work by photographer Jianxing Zhu, showcased at the Siena Awards Festival 2025, reflects resilience and adaptation in the face of environmental and social challenges, offering a poetic vision of survival amid change.

US Secret Service agents rush to shield Republican presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump after he fell as shots rang out during an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024.

Western toad (Anaxyrus boreas) tadpoles cluster among lily pads in a lake on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Captured by photographer Shane Gross and featured at the Siena Awards Festival 2025, the image showcases the delicate beauty of amphibian life and underscores the importance of conserving freshwater ecosystems.

Levi Goldbaum’s award-winning image Plane Overload, honoured in the Sipa Street Photography category, captures the surreal interplay of everyday life and aviation.

Thibault Gerbaldi: A Symbiotic Relationship (Sipa Award: Fascinating Faces & Characters) An intimate portrait capturing the quiet harmony between human presence and the natural world.

Skaters from Kazakhstan, Belgium and Japan push the limits of speed and stamina during the men’s 5000m relay final B at the ISU World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena on March 17, 2024.

Bathed in ethereal light, the forest transforms into a dreamlike setting in Shirley Wung’s “Glowing Luminous Elf in the Forest,” a striking image honoured in the Beauty of Nature category at the Siena Awards Festival 2025.