/ 2025 / Portraiture / Culture

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Mathias Falcone, United Kingdom

The Maha Kumbh Mela, Hindu celebration held in North India in early 2025, was the largest peaceful human gathering in history with over 600 million visitors.

Upon arrival, mesmerised by scale and crowds, I decided that my photographing mission was going to be about individual moments of devotion, documenting intimate spiritual experiences emerging from the masses.

This photo story preserves a fragment of the collective spirit that defined the Maha Kumbh Mela, offering a unique window into the faith centred around an event that returns only every 144 years.