In Siena, the festival that brings together the big names in international photography. For the first time in Italy Steve Winter

From October 23 to December 5, 2021, Siena Awards, an international visual arts festival, returns with a new edition full of exhibitions, initiatives, workshops, photo tours, seminars, lectures, screenings, guided tours and big names in international photography.

Special guest, for the first time in Italy, will be American photojournalist Steve Winter with Big Cats, the largest retrospective ever dedicated to him. The festival will also give space to the works of many other great international photographers, starting with Brent Stirton, an icon of photojournalism, and group exhibitions that will bring together shots and videos from around the world, awarded in the three competitions promoted by the Siena Awards, namely the Siena International Photo Awards, the Creative Photo Awards and the Drone Photo Awards.

The Siena Awards 2021 will kick off on Saturday, Oct. 23, with the opening, in the presence of Steve Winter, of his retrospective exhibition, set up in the spaces of the Siena Museum of Natural History for the duration of the festival. On the same day, the Teatro dei Rinnovati will host the awards ceremony for the three competitions and will see major figures in international photography take the stage. From the following day, Sunday, Oct. 24, until Sunday, Dec. 5, it will be possible to visit all the festival exhibitions.

The retrospective dedicated to Steve Winter, Big Cats, will bring together powerful images that the American photographer has made during his career as a conservation photojournalist for National Geographic, aiming to raise awareness of the issue of conservation of the big cat species. Images of snow leopards, tigers, pumas, and jaguars will take visitors on a journey of discovery of some of the world’s most elusive wild cats photographed by Steve Winter in their natural habitat: from the Himalayan mountains to the jungles and grasslands of India, from the Rocky Mountains of Western America to California, and to the Amazonian rivers of South America. Steve Winter’s lens is able to highlight the beauty of these felines as well as the human threats they face every day in their habitat.

On the other hand, the “La Tinaia” Cultural Center in Sovicille, a few kilometers from Siena, will host a monographic exhibition by Brent Stirton, a South African icon of photojournalism who has won multiple awards for his reportages published in major international newspapers. Awarded Best Author at the SIPA, Siena International Photo Awards 2020, Stirton aims to raise awareness through his shots of the barbarities inflicted by poachers on animals in Africa, Asia and South America. The images on display in Sovicille, in particular, will shine a spotlight on the trafficking of rhino horns, the mysterious slaughter of four gorillas in Virunga National Park, and the teachings addressed to rangers about hiding and surviving paramilitary and poaching groups in Congo.

The spaces of the former Stellino distillery will once again host the winning shots from the twelve categories of the Siena International Photo Awards, SIPA, with the exhibition Imagine all the People Sharing all the World. The exhibition will feature works of art, with photos and videos born from the imagination and visual artistry of Pulitzer Prize winners, multiple World Press Photo winners, National Geographic photographers and other big names in international photography.

I wonder if you can, on the other hand, is the exhibition that will bring together the winning shots from the nineteen categories of the Creative Photo Awards, Siena Awards’ international competition dedicated to artistic and creative photography and open to contemporary photographers. Finally, there are nine categories of the Drone Photo Awards, whose winners will be featured in the Above us only sky exhibition set up in the Cloister Basilica of San Domenico for the second edition of the only group exhibition held in Italy on aerial photography.

All exhibitions will be open on Fridays, from 3 to 7 p.m., and on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Siena Awards festival is promoted by the cultural association Art Photo Travel in co-organization with the Municipality of Siena, under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the University of Siena, the Region of Tuscany and the Chamber of Commerce of Siena and Arezzo.

For more info, visit www.festival.sienawards.com

Pictured is a photo taken by Steve Winter

In Siena, the festival that brings together the big names in international photography. For the first time in Italy Steve Winter

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