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LFI Special: LOBA 2025
LFI Special: LOBA 2025
October 10, 2025
© Alejandro Cegarra
Both LOBA winners were honoured at a festive ceremony held at the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar on October 9, within the framework of the Celebration of Photography. The same evening saw the opening of the 45th edition LOBA exhibition at the museum, presenting the two winning series, along with all the other ten shortlisted ones.
LOBA winner 2025: Alejandro Cegarra. For his long-term project The Two Walls, the photographer travelled to the border region between the USA and Mexico. With his empathetic black and white images, he draws attention to the plight of migrants and asylum seekers and highlights the dramatic situation on the ground. Mexico was once reputed to be a safe haven for asylum seekers. In recent years, however, the country has become a partner in the USA’s anti-immigration policy. In this series, Cegarra focuses primarily on the individual stories of migrants and their families, who suffer from the harsh and inhumane conditions in the Mexican border region.
Alejandro Cegarra was born in Venezuela in 1989, and has been living in Mexico since 2017. He began his photo-journalistic career in 2012. In 2014, he was the winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award with his series The Other Side of the Tower of David, dealing with the occupants of an unfinished high-rise building in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Cegarra has also been a LOBA nominator on a number of occasions.
LOBA Newcomer 2025: Serghei Duve. In a very personal series titled Bright Memory, the Moldovan-born photographer presents his family’s close ties to their old homeland of Transnistria; it declared its independence from Moldova in 1990, but remains an internationally unrecognised state, only supported by Russia. In his pictures, Duve attempts to visualise the feelings that can be described by the Russian expression “bright memory”: everyday life, marked by nostalgia and division.
Serghei Duve was born in Chișinău, Moldova, in 1999. His parents moved the family to Hanover, Germany, when he was one year old. He has been studying Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography at Hanover University since 2021.
The winning series prevailed from among the 281 nominations proposed to the LOBA jury by around 120 experts from the international photography scene in nearly 50 countries. The Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award was determined in collaboration with 20 international institutions and universities from 17 countries. The LOBA is one of the most prestigious and highly-endowed awards in the field of photography: the winner in the Main category receives 40,000 euros and Leica camera equipment worth 10,000 euros; while the winner of the Newcomer Award receives 10,000 euros and a Leica Q3.
Further information at the LOBA website.
Ulrich RüterLOBA winner 2025: Alejandro Cegarra. For his long-term project The Two Walls, the photographer travelled to the border region between the USA and Mexico. With his empathetic black and white images, he draws attention to the plight of migrants and asylum seekers and highlights the dramatic situation on the ground. Mexico was once reputed to be a safe haven for asylum seekers. In recent years, however, the country has become a partner in the USA’s anti-immigration policy. In this series, Cegarra focuses primarily on the individual stories of migrants and their families, who suffer from the harsh and inhumane conditions in the Mexican border region.
Alejandro Cegarra was born in Venezuela in 1989, and has been living in Mexico since 2017. He began his photo-journalistic career in 2012. In 2014, he was the winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award with his series The Other Side of the Tower of David, dealing with the occupants of an unfinished high-rise building in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. Cegarra has also been a LOBA nominator on a number of occasions.
LOBA Newcomer 2025: Serghei Duve. In a very personal series titled Bright Memory, the Moldovan-born photographer presents his family’s close ties to their old homeland of Transnistria; it declared its independence from Moldova in 1990, but remains an internationally unrecognised state, only supported by Russia. In his pictures, Duve attempts to visualise the feelings that can be described by the Russian expression “bright memory”: everyday life, marked by nostalgia and division.
Serghei Duve was born in Chișinău, Moldova, in 1999. His parents moved the family to Hanover, Germany, when he was one year old. He has been studying Visual Journalism and Documentary Photography at Hanover University since 2021.
The winning series prevailed from among the 281 nominations proposed to the LOBA jury by around 120 experts from the international photography scene in nearly 50 countries. The Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award was determined in collaboration with 20 international institutions and universities from 17 countries. The LOBA is one of the most prestigious and highly-endowed awards in the field of photography: the winner in the Main category receives 40,000 euros and Leica camera equipment worth 10,000 euros; while the winner of the Newcomer Award receives 10,000 euros and a Leica Q3.
Further information at the LOBA website.
LOBA 2025+-
The exhibition at the Ernst Leitz Museum is presenting the two winning series by Alejandro Cegarra and Serghei Duve, as well as the ten additional series that made up the complete LOBA 2025 shortlist. Included this year are: Lynsey Addario, Arlette Bashizi, Gideon Mendel, Stanislav Ostrous, Xiangjie Peng, Ivor Prickett, Frederik Rüegger, Anastasia Taylor-Lind, Jodi Windvogel and Youbing Zhan. The exhibition will run until January 11, 2026.
The LOBA 2025 catalogue, including the full series as well as background information, complements the exhibition. It can be ordered at the LFI Shop. More
LFI 8.2025+-
Issue 8.2025 of LFI is dedicating a comprehensive portfolio to the winning and short-listed series.
© Alejandro Cegarra
© Alejandro Cegarra
© Alejandro Cegarra
© Alejandro Cegarra
© Alejandro Cegarra
© Serghei Duve
© Serghei Duve
© Serghei Duve
© Serghei Duve
© Serghei Duve