This year’s title of Minimalist Photographer of the Year has been awarded to Marcin Giba for his series The Last Winter. Giba’s work was selected from more than 6,200 images submitted from 66 countries, and he receives the Grand Prize of €2,000.

Created in his hometown of Rybnik, Poland, The Last Winter presents frozen lakes from above, revealing unexpected forms within the landscape. At first glance, the photographs appear to be abstract studies of ice, snow and texture. Look closer, and familiar shapes begin to emerge, an eye, lips, a heart, or even parts of a human face.

These forms are not imposed on the landscape but discovered within it, creating an intriguing connection between nature and the human imagination. Giba’s photographs move between landscape and abstraction, inviting viewers to look beyond what is immediately visible and find their own associations in the ice.

The series also carries a personal meaning for the photographer. Giba remembers the winters of his childhood as cold, frosty and white, but such winters are becoming less frequent in his hometown. When the conditions finally allow him to fly his drone, he feels that he is documenting a beauty that may one day exist only in memory.

This sense of impermanence gives the series another layer. The frozen landscapes are temporary, and so are the forms that appear within them, an eye, a heart, a face, emerging for a moment before disappearing with the changing season.

The jury was particularly drawn to the originality of Giba’s perspective and the way he transforms a familiar natural landscape into something unexpected and deeply personal. The Last Winter demonstrates how minimalist photography can say more by showing less, leaving space for the viewer’s imagination to complete the image.