Take a look at these incredible images from the International Portrait Photographer of the Year Awards

The portrait is quite different from almost all other forms of photography. Capturing the essence of a person in freeze-frame poses a unique set of challenges, including the complex and ever-changing nature of your subjects. The inaugural International Portrait Photography Awards showcase the best of this challenging discipline, pitting amateur and professional portrait painters from around the world against a prize pool of $ 10,000.

These are our favorite entries from the awards, from French fashion shoots to the tribes of Ethiopia …

River people – Jatenipat Ketpradit, Thailand

A portrait of a family from the Karo tribe, comprising a father, mother, two brothers and two sisters. The tribe lives along the Omo River in Ethiopia and places a heavy emphasis on body art and ornate hairstyles.

Portrait of my grandmother – Md Saud Faisal, Bangladesh

This hard-hitting snap shows the photographer‘s grandmother holding up a portrait of herself younger, shortly before her death during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Task at hand – Jarrod Vero, Australia

A fisherman battles the swell and his reel on a stormy day on the coast of New South Wales in Australia.

A Golden Moment – Kari Dahlstrom, USA

A portrait of a traditional Kazakh eagle hunter at the Eagle Festival in Western Mongolia. For generations, these horsemen have trained hawks to hunt hares, foxes and other small mammals.

Classic Beauty – Maria Presser, Argentina

Taken in her studio in Buenos Aires, photographer Maria Presser designed this shot to mimic the classic oil paintings often found in art galleries.

Shibari Pond – Charlotte Bories, France

Just a photo of a fashion shoot taken in a fish pond in France, this image is inspired by the Japanese erotic art of shibari.

Mundari Cattle Breeder – Josef Burgi, Switzerland

This image shows a poor cattle rancher tending to his herd in the nascent nation of South Sudan.

Temple Visitors – John Powers, United States

John Powers captured this image as two novice monks wandered the halls of their temple on a sunny afternoon in Myanmar.

Red Pepper Picker – Sujon Adhikary, Bangladesh

The women root thousands of peppers to destroy the rotten peppers before sending the harvest to the market. The radio broadcasts religious songs to keep them busy while they work.

Wait, let me take a selfie – Nancy Flammea, Australia

This heavily styled photo argues that social media self-indulgence has always been around, simply in different forms for different generations.

Tribal Identity – Zay Yar Lin, Myanmar

A young Suri boy in Ethiopia paints his face with white clay, surrounded by bracelet-bound women’s hands.

Kebabiyana – Debdatta Chakraborty, India

Taken in a small alleyway in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, this photo shows a street vendor slowly cooking kebabs over a charcoal fire, as the city comes alive in the early evening.

Praying with fire – Azim Khan Ronnie, Bangladesh

Devotees pray with oil lamps and incense during Rakher Upobash festival at Shri Shri Lokenath Brahmachari Ashram in Narayanganj in Bangladesh

The man with the golden fibers – Azim Khan Ronnie, Bangladesh

This Bangladeshi worker doesn’t wear a giant golden wig. It carries around 50 kilograms of jute – a heavy linen-like fiber often used to make high-end rugs and other products that require a strong, heavy yarn.

The Mystical Gaze – Sanjay Patil, India

An ornately decorated dancer performs as part of the Theyyam festival in the Malabar region of Kerala, southern India.