The World’s Best Food Photographs have just been announced by the Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year. This year’s global judging panel, tasked with assessing the thousands of entries submitted from over 65 countries across the world, was chaired by legendary food photographer David Loftus and includes Clare Reichenbach, Tom Athron, Asma Khan, Fiona Shields, and Rein Skullerud.
A haunting image, Red Bean Paste Balls, by Chinese photographer Zhonghua Yang, has won the overall prize of Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year 2024, the world’s leading celebration of food photography and film. The Chinese photographer has been crowned Overall Winner of Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year 2024 and awarded the prize of £5,000 (GBP) for his image capturing a woman entering a room to add her latest creation to a mountain of steaming dim sum, all prepared for a feast to celebrate Lunar New Year.
To see the online gallery of all the 2024 finalists, visit the Pink Lady® Food Photographer of the Year website. Entries for the 2025 edition of the competition will open later this year in September.
More info: pinkladyfoodphotographeroftheyear.com | Instagram | Facebook | x.com
In the rural area of Xiangshan, Zhejiang people are busy with preparations for a feast to celebrate Spring Festival, also know as Lunar New Year. This includes the tradition of making dim sum, such as red bean dumplings, steamed rice cakes and glutinous rice cake, each of which has a legacy of traditional craftsmanship.
Chestnuts symbolise Autumn harvest. In our family with strong Celtic roots, they are considered guardians of men and animals. The antique chestnut roaster is a family heirloom and a nod to our farming heritage. The crested dove symbolises harmony and virility. Chestnuts are highly nutritious and a delicious food for celebrations.
A shopkeeper resting in a greengrocer’s shop in Cuba. The state shops tend to be pretty empty. When food arrives there’s a queue because they are subsidised by the government and so food is much cheaper than in the private stores.
Handmade sourdough bread with a crispy crust, fluffy and airy crumb and with the perfect humidity. Just feeling its smell makes your mouth water and you cannot leave it or change it just like that. It’s a deep, unconditional and loyal love.
As the sun gracefully descends on the horizon, casting a warm and magical golden glow with an ethereal radiance, a tribal lady engages in the ancient practice of threshing rice grains in the courtyard of her home with rhythmic movements by skillfully tossing the harvested rice into the air.
Buri is Japanese for the fish Seriola quinqueradiata, known in English as ‘yellowtail’. For centuries, fishermen filleted buri, salted them, dried them for about ten days, and finally wrapped them in leaves and long rice-straw ropes before hanging them in front of their houses, exposed to the sea breeze.
The Brokpas are a small ethnic group mostly found in the union territory of Ladakh, India. The Brokpas traditionally claim themselves to be descendants of Alexander’s lost army. The Brokpa diet is based on locally grown barley and wheat, prepared most often as tsampa (roasted flour) and Gur-Gur Cha, a brewed tea made of black tea, butter and salt.
Boats fan out across a stretch of the lake, creating a floating market selling an array of fresh fruit. This is a floating market of seasonal fruits such as jackfruit, pineapple, mango etc. at Rangamati, Bangladesh. The tribal farmers sell their fruit every early morning at minimum price on a wholesale basis.
Under a bridge that spans the red river in Hanoi, Vietnam, residents have transformed public lands into bountiful gardens. As I descended the stairs to explore this hidden corner of the city, I came upon this man carrying his banana haul and was struck by the soulfulness of his eyes.
Lucy and Tony and their children made the long journey from Kent to the Isle of Skye to get married. They didn’t want to transport a traditional wedding cake all that way, so their cakemaker produced these fabulous little ‘cakes in containers’ for them. We found a spot by the historical Sligachan Bridge and they tucked in!
Chris Lilly is the multi-award-winning pitmaster at Big Bob Gibson’s in Decatur, Alabama. Big Bob (Lilly’s great-grandfather-in-law), opened the business in 1925 and found fame for his revolutionary white barbecue sauce (at a time when most BBQ sauces were red and tomato or chilli-based.) His recipe of mayonnaise, black pepper, vinegar and lemon has since become hugely popular worldwide.
This photograph is part of my ongoing self-portrait project, urging women to find liberation through unidealized self-images. Excessive self-documentation fosters familiarity, enabling women to exist unapologetically in photos. Capturing myself eating a B.L.T. without inhibition felt fitting, given the complex relationships women often have with their bodies and food. I’m passionate about women embracing their cameras, leading to liberation and self-love.
Chef Antón bids farewell to his beloved restaurant, after 30 years of service, inviting his closest family and friends to a simple yet heartfelt feast. The main dish, sourced from a pig slaughter: liver with onions, served with sourdough bread and a fine Rioja. A poignant farewell to a culinary era filled with laughter, joy and good red wine.
Every evening, Ayesha makes packets of Hawai sweets by herself. The next day, at six in the morning, Ayesha and her daughter Hanufa go to different streets in the village and children’s schools and sell the Hawai sweets. They earn about 300 taka per day and with this money she maintains her family and business.
I caught this bee having breakfast on a large sunflower at Bignor Roman Villa in West Sussex, England. Without bees to pollinate, there would be far less food in the world.
I caught this bee having breakfast on a large sunflower at Bignor Roman Villa in West Sussex, England. Without bees to pollinate, there would be far less food in the world.
The killing of the pig is a real ritual of Italian rural culture. I was struck by the elderly man’s sense of respect towards the sacrificed animal and I hope that the image makes us reflect on how man’s relationship with food has changed in the last 70 years.
