Damir Faizulin takes the main Leica Oskar Barnack Award for his work in Dagestan and the North Caucasus, Laila AnnMarie Stevens wins the Newcomer prize, and Valentina Sinis becomes the first recipient of the LOBA Women Grant.

Leica has announced the winners of the 2026 Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA), one of the longest-running and most respected documentary photography prizes, alongside the first-ever LOBA Women Grant.

The main award goes to Russian photographer Damir Faizulin for his series on the nature and way of life in the mountains of Dagestan and the North Caucasus of southern Russia. It’s a body of work that looks at how closely the people of the region live alongside the landscape, and why preserving one is tied to preserving the other.

The Newcomer award goes to American photographer Laila AnnMarie Stevens, whose reflective black-and-white series examines contemporary queer kinship structures and the continuing legacy of Black women.

Alongside the two established categories, this year also sees the first LOBA Women Grant, awarded to Italian photographer Valentina Sinis. The grant will allow her to continue her long-term project in Iraqi Kurdistan with professional and financial support from Leica.

What the winners receive

According to the LOBA 2026 rules, the main award carries €40,000 plus Leica camera equipment worth €10,000, while the Newcomer award is worth €10,000 plus a Leica Q3.

The new LOBA Women Grant is endowed with €10,000, a Leica Q3 and professional support during the production of the project. Unusually for LOBA, it was open to direct submissions with a project outline rather than nominations, and the finished series will join the 2027 shortlist.

This year’s main category drew proposals from more than 130 photography experts across 48 countries, while the Newcomer award received proposals from 28 institutions and colleges in 18 countries. The jury met at Leica’s headquarters in Wetzlar in May to whittle the entries down to the shortlist, which was published over the summer.

Our take

LOBA has always rewarded patient, long-form documentary work rather than single striking frames, and this year’s winners fit that tradition well. Faizulin’s mountain communities and Stevens’ intimate black-and-white portraits could hardly be more different in subject, but both are the product of photographers spending real time with the people in front of the lens.

The LOBA Women Grant is the most interesting addition. Rather than rewarding finished work, it funds a project still in progress, and we’ll get to see the result when it joins next year’s shortlist.

Exhibition

The winning and shortlisted series will be shown in a touring exhibition that opens at the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar, before travelling to Leica galleries and selected photo festivals. A catalogue featuring the winning and shortlisted work is also being published.

You can see the full 2026 shortlist on the Leica Oskar Barnack Award website.