Honorable Mention / 2024 / Fine Art / Other

• Photographer
  Matthew Smith, United Kingdom

The images are taken from my forthcoming photoseries, Mila and the Storm, a novel-as-photoseries. 65 images tell the story of Mila, a Russian makeup artist who has escaped from her small town in the North Caucasus to live in Istanbul, then London. Here she meets an old school friend, Anastasia, who is a successful photographer now based in London. Anastasia takes portraits shots of Mila in Istanbul, and mingles them here with images that Mila takes later in London, after her Talent Visa comes through. Mila's birthplace, Tbilisi, also makes a hazy appearance, as though clouded by memory.