One giant leap: Deutsche Börse photography prize shortlist – in pictures
From pole-vaulting migrants to a shocking family story, the four nominees for the prestigious £30,000 prize show off their best images
· the GuardianLa que se Fue, Mexico, from the series Journey to the Center, 2021
The four international artists shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize 2025 include Cristina de Middel, who was shortlisted for the exhibition Journey to the Center at Les Rencontres d’Arles. The exhibition presents the Central American migration route across Mexico as a heroic and daring journey, rather than a desperate escape. You can see more in this gallery. Work from the four shortlisted projects will be on show at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, from 7 March to 15 June 2025
Photograph: Cristina de Middel/Magnum Photos
Inocente Pobre Amigo, Baja California, Tijuana, Mexico, 2018 (from the series Journey to the Center)
The migration authority in Baja California reports that over 300,000 migrants cross illegally from Tijuana into the San Diego area annually. De Middel says: ‘In 2018, I reached out to the Athletic Club of Tijuana asking for a collaboration whereby they would train beside a section of the border at Tijuana Beach known as the Tortilla Wall. The picture captures Jorge Luna attempting a jump at the point where the wall meets the sea. This crossing is particularly hazardous, due to strong currents and heightened militarisation’
Photograph: Cristina de Middel/Magnum Photos
Un mundo Raro, Puebla, Mexico, 2019 (from the series Journey to the Center)
De Middel combines straight documentary photography with constructed images and archival material. She uses multi-layered narratives to reflect the complexity of human migration today. Popocatepetl is one of 14 active volcanoes in Mexico. It has been in constant eruption since 2014. Benito Juárez, whose image is framing the volcano, was the first Indigenous president of the Mexican republic and a symbol of struggle against foreign intervention
Photograph: Cristina de Middel/Magnum Photos
Una Piedra en el Camino, from the series Journey to the Center, 2021
De Middel borrows the atmosphere and structure of the Jules Verne book, Journey to the Center of the Earth. The journey begins in Tapachula on the southern border of Mexico with Guatemala, and ends in Felicity, a small town in California which officially claims the absurd title ‘Center of the World’. The border fence is visible from Felicity which adds to the dystopic disappointment of the journey, where the final destination is no more than a roadside tourist attraction
Photograph: Cristina de Middel
Untitled Cowboy (Acres Homes), Houston, Texas, 2022
Rahim Fortune is shortlisted for the book Hardtack, which was published by Loose Joints in 2024. Hardtack uncovers the roots that tie Fortune’s native landscape to the conflicts and nuances associated with the post-emancipation Americas
Photograph: Rahim Fortune
Praise Dancers, Edna, Texas, 2022
The subjects of his striking portraits of coming-of-age traditions – young bull-riders, praise dancers and pageant queens – all inherit and gracefully embrace these community rituals. Fortune pays tribute to the rigour, discipline and creative flair of these cultural performances, alongside the intergenerational conversation between young people and elders handing down these traditions. You can see more in this gallery
Photograph: Rahim Fortune
Praying Cowboy, Gladewater, Texas, 2021
Hardtack is an unleavened bread made with flour, water and salt that was typical of the southern states of the US during the civil war era. Due to its extremely long shelf life, hardtack is associated with survivalism and land migration. Fortune draws on this as a metaphor for the enduring nature of Black culture and traditions
Windmill House, Hutto, Texas, 2022
In Hardtack, Fortune weaves documentary and personal history in the region which has nourished him personally and creatively
Photograph: Rahim Fortune
Khumalo street where accident happened, Thokoza, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2023
Lindokuhle Sobekwa is shortlisted for the book I Carry Her Photo With Me, published by Mack Books in 2024
Photograph: Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Family group photo on a Christmas day, Thokoza, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017
The deeply personal project began when Sobekwa found a family portrait with his older sister Ziyanda’s face cut out. It remains the only photograph he has of her. One day, when the siblings were seven and 13, she chased him and he was hit by a car and badly injured. She disappeared hours later, only returning a decade later, ill. By this time Sobekwa had become a photographer. He tried to take her portrait, but stopped when she reacted angrily. Ziyanda died soon after
Photograph: Lindokuhle Sobekwa
My mother at work, Brackendowns, South Africa, Johannesburg, 2018
You can read more about the project here
Photograph: Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Ziyanda’s clothing, Thokoza, Johannesburg, South Africa 2013
I Carry Her Photo With Me combines photographs, handwritten notes and family snapshots. Through this scrapbook-like publication Sobekwa explores the memory of his sister and the wider implications of such disappearances – a troubling part of South Africa’s history
Photograph: Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Meditations for Ana (from series Ayni, Offerings for My Sister) 2020-2022
Tarrah Krajnak is shortlisted for the exhibition Shadowings: A Catalogue of Attitudes for Estranged Daughters which was on display at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam
Photograph: Tarrah Krajnak
For Ana (from series Ayni, Offerings for My Sister), 2020-2022
Krajnak is deeply invested in the craft and processes of photography. She continues to print all her photographs, using methods including pigment prints from colour film, silver gelatin prints, cyanotypes and anthotypes (images made using plant-based light-sensitive materials)
Photograph: Tarrah Krajnak
Sister Rock/Rock that Tries to Forget (from Automatic Rocks/Excavation), 2020
The Peruvian-American artist bends time and blurs the lines between staged self-portraiture and performance, self and other, fact and fiction. The nominated retrospective brings together her most important work spanning 20 years. Krajnak uses the camera as a research tool and takes a conceptual approach to the re-materialisation of photography
Photograph: Tarrah Krajnak
Rock of Two Mothers/Rock That Bruises (from Automatic Rocks/Excavation), 2022
Krajnak’s own body appears often, and her production sites move between the studio, fieldwork and the darkroom. Krajnak turns her lens to other photography, including work by the ‘masters’ of photography. She restages key works with her own bodily interventions
Photograph: Tarrah Krajnak