Alberto Lara's Self-Portrait is the Mobile Photo of the Year

© Alberto Lara, 2019 Mobile Photo of the Year

An independent jury comprising Erik Kessels, Caroline Hunter, Chiara Bardelli Nonino, and Marcelo Brodsky have selected the winners of our first Mobile Photography Prize.

Mexican photographer Alberto Lara claimed the Mobile Photo of the Year prize with a self-portrait. "The disturbing and monumental self-portrait of Alberto Lara is a definite winner of the competition" explains judge Erik Kessels. "Not only does it shine in its aesthetics, but above all, it has a surreal character. Again, this is an image that makes you slightly uncomfortable looking at it. An absolute must in a time when we’re constantly surrounded by images."

Fellow judge Marcelo Brodsky continues: "This self-portrait is a great Mobile Photo of the Year because it proves the emotional power of mobile photography; it is one moment, one idea, one colour, and one expression synthetised in an image that presents the new generations and their identity changes and transitions in a powerful and simple way. Colour, composition, expression, originality, self-questioning, doubt, affirmation, courage… all coexist in this intimate self-portrait, a contemporary reflection on a changing definition of the self."

"The raw, unnatural colour of the flesh, the cryptic stare, the prone, awkward position, the indecipherable setting; everything in Alberto Lara's compelling portrait asks you to keep on looking - or to just surrender to its magnetic charm" adds Chiara Bardelli Nonino.

To see all the awarded photos, go to phmuseum.com/grant. Also, stay tuned for the announcement of the 200 images to be featured in our first mobile photography book, and of those that will be exhibited in Bologna, Italy. They will be communicated in September and November, respectively.