A great event in the Leitz Park: The Leica Oskar Barnack Award ceremony was held within the framework of the Celebration of Photography 2024
Davide Monteleone and Maria Guțu: This year’s two winners were honoured with the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2024 at a celebratory ceremony at Leica headquarters on the evening of 10 October 2024.
In the 44th round of the photography prize, the LOBA jury awarded the main prize to Davide Monteleone, who was born in Italy in 1974 and resides in Switzerland. In his series “Critical Minerals – Geography of Energy”, he scrutinises the complex geopolitical, social and environmental effects of today’s international energy industry with a focus on renewability.
Photographer Maria Guțu, who was born in Moldova in 1996, was the winner in the LOBA newcomer category with her very personal series “Homeland”, which explores labour migration from her home country. Both series and the complete LOBA Shortlist 2024 with works from ten additional artists will be on display at the Ernst Leitz Museum until January 2025.
Celebration of Photography – a place of encounters: The event was once again a great experience for all guests and covered, besides award ceremonies and exhibitions, a wide array of topics related to Leica photography. The event on 9 and 10 October was not only a celebration of the winners of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, Davide Monteleone and Maria Guțu, but also a moment to honour the induction of Herlinde Koelbl into the Leica Hall of Fame.

LOBA Katalog 2024
The LOBA catalogue 2024 features all the short-listed series of the 44th edition of the LOBA. In both German and English editions, with 148 pages and 118 images (plus an index with 220 images), the publication presents the two winners Davide Monteleone and Maria Guțu (Main and Newcomer categories respectively), as well as the other ten candidates on the LOBA 2024 shortlist, with their complete series and further background information. The additional photographers included are: Forough Alaei, Anush Babajanyan, Emily Garthwaite, Ksenia Ivanova, Lucas Lenci, Adriana Loureiro Fernández, Sara Meneses Cuapio, Tong Niu, Ingmar Björn Nolting and Etinosa Yvonne.