The winner and Photographer of the Year 2022 is Marcus Yam (USA) with his image “Afghanistan’s air force is a rare U.S.-backed success story. It may soon fail.” The beautiful composition and masterful lighting give an exceptional depth to the portrait of this soldier looking out through the window of his helicopter. We can sense concern, tiredness and disbelief just by looking at his face. We were struck by its quality and the powerful story it had to tell.

Marcus Yam explains: "A soldier surveys the terrain out of the window of a UH-60 Black Hawk during a resupply flight toward an outpost in the Shah Wali Kot district north of Kandahar, Afghanistan, on May 6, 2021. The Afghan Air Force, which the U.S. and its partners have nurtured to the tune of $8.5 billion since 2010, is now the government's safeguard in its fight against the enemy. Since May 1, the original deadline for the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban have overpowered government troops, wrestling away control of territories and further denying Afghan security forces the use of roads. As a result, all logistical support to thousands of outposts and checkpoints - including re-supplies of ammunition and food, medical evacuations or personnel rotation - must be done by air."

The second-place winner is Debdatta Chakraborty (India), the third-place winner is Konstantinos Tsakalidis (Greece), the fourth-place winner is Landry Major (United States), and the fifth-place winner is Rebecca Moseman (United States).

For this 7th edition of All About Photo Awards - The Min'd Eye, we received more than 4200 images from 480 photographers all around the world. It is fascinating to discover so many photographers with such different backgrounds and stories.

The final selection reflects images documenting events and highlighting current issues; however, unlike 2021, this year’s submissions overall seem less emotional and more focused on aesthetics. Both winning images by Marcus Yam and Konstantinos Tsakalidis are of conflict and unrest, but many of the other scenes seem almost idyllic, though often times when you look closer, there was something else happening in the frame that was anything but perfect.

It was fascinating to see the differences between last year's submissions and winners and this year's. The first incarnation of the contest brought mostly b&w images, many that were reminiscent of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the great street photographers of the last century, lyrical images captured on film or at least in grayscale, images that tipped their hats to the namesake of the competition (The Mind's Eye is an essay by Cartier-Bresson).

There were also fewer images of death due to COVID 19 and wars, despite a world still in turmoil. Images were more peaceful and even funny in many cases. Drone photography is also more and more popular among photographers as well as images of our planet and its wildlife.

Each time, it is not an easy task to select the winners as there are a lot of wonderful submissions. We try to select those images that best reflect the theme and demonstrate a unique perspective of photography.

If you'd like to see our other posts featuring winning images from previous awards, you can do that by clicking here and here.