Gold in Portraiture/Personality / 2026 / Portraiture / Personality

• Prize
  Gold in Portraiture/Personality
• Photographer
  Gianluigi Lenoci, Italy
• Date of Photograph
  16/05/2026
• Instagram
  @luigilenoci

In the last warm light of the day, Masee stands suspended between tenderness and defiance.

There is something nomadic in her gaze, a feeling of distance, memory, and a fractured sense of belonging to her homeland. Her eyes do not ask to be admired.
They ask to be understood.

Behind her, the aging walls of the Certosa cemetery in Bologna seem to echo silence and time, while her presence remains fiercely alive — fragile, luminous, unbroken.

Gianluigi “Lux” Lenoci is a photographer based in Bologna whose work investigates identity, emotional truth, and human resilience.

His portraits often emerge from real encounters with activist, artistic, and diaspora communities, particularly connected to Iran and Ukraine. Through an intimate and observational approach, he explores the fragile space between vulnerability and strength, silence and presence.

Influenced by documentary photography and humanistic visual storytelling, Lux seeks to create portraits that feel lived rather than constructed.

Awards IPA
Winner Event-Social Cause
Non-Professional IPA 2023