5 fotografie • Selezione strutturata
1° Premio €1.000 • Overall Winner €1.500
8–10 fotografie • Progetto coerente
1° Premio €1.500 • Overall Winner €2.000
5 fotografie • Estevan Oriol Lead Judge
1° Premio €2.000
Fourteen months. That is how long it took to get from the first idea to the days we finally lived together. Months of work, planning, collaboration, choices, setbacks and responsibility. Then the people arrive, the screens light up, the music starts, and everything that until then existed only in our heads comes to life.
It is a feeling I know well. For months we get to know the participants through their photographs, their names, their posters. Then at last we shake hands, look each other in the eye, talk. Behind every image we discover a person, a family, a story. And when the time comes to say goodbye, we wish we had one more day.
At TheStreetSoup we created the Milano Photo Awards because we felt the need for an event that would give photography and photographers a recognisable place in this city. Milan knows how to come together around fashion, design, art and music. We wanted to help create the same kind of meeting point for an art form that involves hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts and deserves attention, opportunities and recognition.
We chose a precise format: a photography award paired with an event where every participant could find a place, through digital projections, personal posters and the chance to meet one another.
Preparing the projections of the photographs of 1,200 participants, along with the spaces dedicated to finalists and winners, took an enormous amount of work. The same goes for the individual posters: a commitment we took on gladly, but one that, especially in the last two months with so many registrations coming in, put our organisation to the test. There were delays and difficulties. We acknowledge them and we apologise.
Behind that choice was a conviction that remains intact: even those who do not make the podium deserve to be seen.
The heart of the exhibition was digital, alongside the panels of the main exhibitors and the winners. This was the format described on the website and in the participation materials. Some visitors expected a traditional exhibition and were disappointed. We are sorry for that gap between expectations and experience, and we will work to make what we offer even clearer.
Music, wine, conversations and encounters were an integral part of the event. Some would have preferred a different atmosphere; many others experienced it exactly in the spirit in which we had imagined it.
We saw children, families, young photographers and professionals spending time together. We opened more than 300 bottles of wine, shared stories and saw connections born that we hope will become friendships and collaborations. This too, for us, means giving value to photography: creating the conditions for people to build something together.
There is, however, a part of this story that I feel I must tell clearly.
I am speaking in the first person, as organiser of the Milano Photo Awards and founder of TheStreetSoup, taking responsibility for these words.
Our relationship with Nikon Italia goes back a long way. It dates to the time when we published a magazine, around 2011: Nikon was one of our advertisers and supplied us with equipment for our reportage, including in Afghanistan. When we came up with the Milano Photo Awards, they were the first people we turned to, precisely because of that history.
Nikon Italia welcomed the project and chose from the very beginning to associate its name with it under the label “Powered by Nikon”. We had made clear what kind of involvement we expected from that role, something different from a simple technical sponsorship.
We therefore gave our partner constant visibility: on the posters, on the website and throughout all our communication. Even the choice of black and yellow was a nod to that collaboration.
Allow us a clarification here, with a touch of irony.
Two people, out of 1,200 participants, went as far as writing to tell us that we should return the money we had received from Nikon, and that the brand should distance itself from an event that, in their words, looked more like a nightclub than an exhibition.
Perhaps, between one photograph and the next, they were expecting a bottle of Dom Pérignon instead of Prosecco di Valdobbiadene. We are sorry to disappoint them on that point: we had planned photographs, music, a glass of wine and people to talk to. That some people also had fun was part of the programme.
As for the money to return, there is one small detail: Nikon Italia did not give us a single cent. A financial contribution was never part of the agreement. There is therefore no sum received from Nikon to give back.
The prize pool and the production of the event were funded by the entry fees and by additional financial resources we put in ourselves. Anyone who organises events in Milan knows how much a venue, set-up, equipment, staff and hospitality cost.
The irony ends here, because behind these two days there is work, resources and a direct investment by TheStreetSoup. Criticism is legitimate; so is accuracy about the facts.
Our disappointment with Nikon Italia concerns their involvement in the project and their presence at the event.
About a month and a half before the opening, we were told that Nikon Italia would not be able to attend because of four other events taking place in Milan at the same time.
After a year of preparation, that news had concrete consequences. The programme included the partner’s presence and its stand; we had also asked to give visitors the chance to try out the equipment. We had to rethink activities, meetings and scheduling, and deal directly with participants’ expectations and questions.
Personally, I felt deeply disappointed and, in some ways, betrayed in the trust I had placed in this collaboration.
What saddens me most concerns the photographers. There were young people, newcomers, people with talent and enthusiasm with whom a brand like Nikon could have engaged. Its presence would have been a sign of attention towards that community. Its absence, as I experienced it, showed a lack of consideration for an occasion built for them too.
We had fun, we shared two important days and the event had a value that lasts. But that does not erase the disappointment.
The consequences also affected the programme linked to Estevan Oriol. Nikon Italia’s presence was meant to be an opportunity for them to meet and discuss possible collaborations. Without that prospect, Estevan’s participation was also affected and the programme planned with him did not take place.
To the participants of The Oriol Vision, however, we want to give some precise information.
The digital exhibition with the photographs of all participants was regularly projected during the Milano Photo Awards. In the next 48–72 hours we will also announce the top three of The Oriol Vision.
We are already talking with Estevan to organise, as soon as possible, an event entirely dedicated to him and to the photographers who took part in this project, with him present. We are working to find a date as quickly as we can: as soon as it is confirmed, we will share all the details and notify participants by email as well.
In some ways, this new event could be an even more meaningful occasion: a space entirely dedicated to The Oriol Vision, its authors and the meeting with Estevan. We are working on it and will keep you updated.
We thought long and hard about whether to make the difficulties of this collaboration public. In the end I felt it was right to do so. We take responsibility for our choices, our delays and our mistakes. It is equally right to make clear which changes depended on other people’s decisions.
Behind these days there are people who worked for months, giving their time, energy and resources, and who until the very end looked for solutions to keep our commitments to the participants. I am thinking of Luca, Danilo, Guglielmo, Alessandra and everyone who contributed. Their work deserves respect and an honest account of what happened.
The awards gala planned for Sunday 27 September has also been postponed. It was conceived as a meeting between the winners and Nikon Italia, to give attention to the winning projects and open a dialogue about possible collaborations. With that premise gone, we decided to reschedule it.
The gala is postponed. In the coming days we will update the winners directly on the new date and the organisational details.
Finalists will also receive their honourable mentions and dedicated posters, which will be published on our channels. The website will host the work of the winners and finalists and, after that, the new open call.
For the next edition, our priority will be to sit down again with Nikon Italia and understand together whether the conditions exist to continue this collaboration. A relationship that goes back so far deserves an honest conversation, even when there are disappointments to face.
We know that within an international company there can be commitments, needs and organisational dynamics that cannot be fully seen from the outside. So we also want to hear their point of view and start again from a deeper dialogue, clearly defining each party’s involvement, presence and commitments.
Our hope is to build the next edition together with Nikon Italia once again. If the conditions to continue do not emerge from that conversation, we will turn to other possible partners. The Milano Photo Awards will go on, with the same determination with which they began.
We want to make this award a fixed date in the calendar, improving it year after year. We have a lot to learn from this first edition and the ambition to make it grow until it holds an important place on the international scene.
Thank you to the participants, the finalists, the winners, the judges, the main exhibitors and everyone who worked with us. Thank you to those who travelled from far away, to those who brought their families, to those who hugged us and to those who offered us constructive criticism.
Above all, thank you for being there when all of this was still a first time.
The lights have gone out on the first edition. The story has only just begun. And in its opening scene, forever, there is you.
