Deutscher Jugendfotopreis 2026.
Pha Croissant, Josefin Pilar Junge, Anna Lotta Maria Schulze and Jasper Hill are among this year’s winners. Their work is on show in Düsseldorf until mid-November.
From the series ‘Silken Roots’. Photo: Pha Croissant
Pha Croissant photographs her family in Thailand. Here, her cousin and her dogs run along the fields.
From the series ‘Schreibst du mir wenn du zuhause bist?’. Photo: Josefin Pilar Junge
Josefin Pilar Junge photographs the walk home at night – a route many women and girls take in fear.
From the series ‘Lina’. Photo: Anna Lotta Maria Schulze
Anna Lotta Maria Schulze photographs her little sister Lina, who lives with a severe disability. The picture is titled ‘Lina’s own little world’.
From the series ‘Im Land der weißen Berge’. Photo: Jasper Hill
Jasper Hill documents potash mining in Germany. Because potash cannot be mined separately from other salts, much of the rock ends up on white spoil heaps.
Four students from our programme are among the winners of the Deutscher Jugendfotopreis 2026, Germany’s national youth photography award. Pha Croissant wins a main prize in the Experiments category. Josefin Pilar Junge, Anna Lotta Maria Schulze and Jasper Hill each receive a commendation. The prizes were presented in Düsseldorf on 19 September.
This year, 1,236 young people entered the nationwide competition with 8,304 works. The jury awarded 40 prizes. All the winning works are on show in the exhibition ‘ECHT JETZT’ at KIT – Kunst im Tunnel until 15 November.
Pha Croissant photographed her family in Thailand over several years. For a long time, her relationship with them was complicated, she says. Feeling that her photos did not do her relatives justice, she exposed a selection onto coated silk in the sun. The result is cyanotypes you can hold in your hands. For the jury, the technique in ‘Silken Roots’ is the ‘perfect extension’ of the project.
In ‘Schreibst du mir wenn du zuhause bist?’ (‘Will you text me when you get home?’), Josefin Pilar Junge looks at walking home at night – something many women and girls do not feel safe doing. For her, the subject was not an idea but a necessity, Junge says. She points to cuts in support services and a shortfall of around 14,000 places in women’s refuges.
From the series ‘Silken Roots’. Photo: Pha Croissant
Pha Croissant’s grandfather in front of his house. She exposed a selection of the pictures onto silk as cyanotypes under the Thai sun.
From the series ‘Schreibst du mir wenn du zuhause bist?’. Photo: Josefin Pilar Junge
‘Will you text me when you get home?’ The title of the series quotes a sentence many women know from everyday life.
From the series ‘Lina’. Photo: Anna Lotta Maria Schulze
Dancing in spring. All the pictures in the series are black and white, which brings Lina’s gestures and feelings to the fore.
From the series ‘Im Land der weißen Berge’. Photo: Jasper Hill
Jasper Hill worked on the series for a year and a half. Some motifs can only be photographed once a year, a few only every few years.
Anna Lotta Maria Schulze’s work is about her little sister Lina. Lina lives with a severe disability; the two grew up together. The black-and-white pictures have become a photobook. ‘For me, disability is normality,’ says Schulze. She wants to show how different people’s realities are – and how many ways there are of being a sister.
Jasper Hill found his subject through a train window. He saw one of the huge white potash spoil heaps and wanted to know what lay behind it. In ‘Im Land der weißen Berge’ (‘In the Land of the White Mountains’), he documents potash mining in Germany. Most of the pictures were taken in 2024; he reshot some of the motifs the following year.
The winners from Hannover
Main prize, Experiments category
Pha Croissant: ‘Silken Roots’
Commendation, age category 16 to 20
Josefin Pilar Junge: ‘Schreibst du mir wenn du zuhause bist?’
Commendations, age category 21 to 25
Anna Lotta Maria Schulze: ‘Lina’
Jasper Hill: ‘Im Land der weißen Berge’
Exhibition ‘ECHT JETZT’
20 September to 15 November 2026
KIT – Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf
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