The shortlist for the 2026 World Food Photography Awards has been announced (35 photos)

Now that the 2026 shortlist has been announced, we are pleased to share an overview of this year’s World Food Photography Awards, hosted by Bimi®. With thousands of entries from over 50 countries, this contest once again highlights the incredible diversity and creativity found in food photography from around the world.

From growing and harvesting to cooking, eating and celebrating, these images go far beyond what’s on the plate. They offer a powerful look at everyday life, culture and tradition, captured through the universal language of food.

With an international panel of judges led by renowned food photographer David Loftus, the competition continues to set the standard for visual storytelling in the field. The winners of the 27 categories will be announced in London on June 2nd, but for now we encourage you to explore some of the standout images that made this year’s shortlist.

Scroll down to see the photos that impressed our judges and celebrate the art of food photography at its best.

More information: worldfoodphotographyawards.com | Instagram | Facebook | x.com

An urban farmer transports lemongrass rafts and returns them to a deep water bed after harvest. Oko Farms is an outdoor aquaponics farm located in Brooklyn, New York.

Jean-Michel Deis, a biodynamic producer from Alsace. Most of his wines are white, but here he steps on Pinot Noir grapes to make red wine.

A Guatemalan pineapple vendor has set up a stand in the middle of a miles-long stretch of empty road. Pineapples are sold whole or sliced and topped with strawberries.

Pukhtar Monastery, located in the Zanskar Valley, is picturesque and unique. The multi-storey gompa is accessible only by foot and is perched on a cliff face above the Tsarap River. While exploring the monastery, we passed a smoke-stained kitchen. There, the cook was preparing dinner for the resident monks.

Close-up detail of Homemade Summer Chocolate Oyster Mushroom showing the delicate fan-like structure of the edible fungus’s gills.

At La Perseverancia Market in Bogotá, Colombia, dozens of stalls are preparing for lunch at the same time.

With Mount Semeru towering in the background, villagers in East Java, Indonesia, raise goats as an important food source. Goats provide nutritious meat and milk, supporting daily diets and festivals. Because they are adapted to volcanic areas, they also provide stable income and food security for rural families.

Sushi Donuts reinterprets familiar shapes through precise food styles and graphic compositions. Transforming sushi into a donut shape creates anticipation, repetition, and symmetry in this piece. Bold colors, negative space, and clean structure emphasize pattern and balance, allowing ingredients to function as food and design simultaneously, creating vibrant, visually dynamic compositions.

Quad boom lights can illuminate rows of vineyards and create dramatic lighting with rich, warm colors. The beauty of this tone is always appealing to me. I wanted to get a unique perspective on this Los Carneros harvest, so I used a drone to film almost the entire thing.

“Dasitao” (making peach-shaped cakes) is a typical folk custom for the New Year in rural areas of Huizhou, Anhui Province, China. The surface is often decorated with red or cinnabar, and the finished product resembles a peach, symbolizing “double blessing” and “good luck.” In 2018, it was registered as a representative intangible cultural heritage. There, families across generations gather together in a warm and friendly atmosphere, creating a scene that resembles a picture scroll of a reunion. Mix the rice and flour and gently press it into the mold to create the first shape of the lower tail. Nearby, my daughter prepares vegetables and cooks. The photo fully captures the rich flavor of the New Year and the warmth of family unity.

They are new recruits to a nunnery near Yangon, Myanmar. They were likely orphans or refugees from fighting within the country, but here they found shelter, safety, and companionship.

This young woman is engaged in domestic chores in a traditional Danish setting, reminding her of a simpler way of life. Lighting plays a key role in this image, with sunlight streaming through the windows creating highlights and deep shadows, emphasizing the texture and dimension of objects and surfaces. You can get a glimpse of a rustic kitchen that combines tradition and modernity.

Use your imagination and you will see things differently. Next, glue toy planes on the blue paper and use lots of biscuits to create a city. Lie down on the floor and take photos from above through the glass. This photo is part of a long-term project of my surreal still life paintings.

Old Fashioned Smoked. A dramatic and fragrant twist on a classic Old Fashioned dating back to the 1800s. This image places a historic cocktail on a cracked vintage leather table, highlighting traditional ingredients with a modern touch of wood chip smoke, creating a beautiful sensory and visual experience.

I just wanted to take some pictures. It wasn’t a faraway drought-stricken land, but a German vegetable patch before harvest. But where lettuce once grew, we instead find this sight…yet, for those who look carefully, hope begins to grow.

La Feria de Seville has always celebrated food. What started as a livestock fair in 1847 has become a week-long festival centered around 1,000 casetas sharing tapas. Traditions are passed down through food, clothing, and dance. No fair, no matter how traditional, is complete without the biggest, pinkest cotton candy.

Vietnamese fishermen are committed to preserving old traditions and providing fresh fish daily on the beaches of the vibrant, modern city of Da Nang. Basket boats are a symbol of the fishermen’s dedication to their craft, the sea, and the inheritance of Vietnamese culture.

A quiet street. The scene unfolds on a quiet street in Osaka at night. The air is cool and slightly humid, and the neon light gives off a cold white glow that contrasts sharply with the surrounding darkness. A man in red clothes stands motionless in front of a vending machine. The machine illuminates the scene with artificial light.

On the shores of the Mediterranean, a pug lounges in a sun-drenched camper van, staring at crispy cinnamon rolls and golden muffins. This shot celebrates the simple sweet joys of life by the sea and the irresistible temptation of the perfect pastry.

Classic hot dogs are sold from seat to seat at an Orioles baseball game at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

This wedding, held at the Royal Crescent Hotel, features a traditional lace where a group of friends eat dessert without using their hands or cutlery. The winners quickly celebrated their victories, while the others tried to cross the finish line with varying degrees of success and decorum.

Campaign photo for the Hochland cheese brand. Food Stylist: Gabi Sowa Retouch by Katarzyna Kędroń

This image taken at Musk’s test kitchen in Mumbai shows a chef experimenting with freezing food using liquid nitrogen. Known for its ingredients-focused philosophy, Masque reimagines and champions locally sourced Indian produce through progressive techniques and contemporary tasting menus.

Excerpt from the book photographed for cupcake decorator Rachel Lindsay (@cakedbyrach). Over three weeks of filming, she used leftover icing to create this stunning scene that became the back cover of the book.

Free research | Please bring chocolate! Two little monkeys, fingers in the pot, chocolate everywhere. Mess style, magical frames – drips, swirls, and luxurious chaos to celebrate sweetness and joy. Chocolate and sweet memories that steal the show!

This image shows a bright red pomegranate seed close up in great detail. The seeds are shiny and translucent with small water droplets adhering to their smooth surface. A rich crimson hue dominates the frame, creating a vibrant, almost luminescent effect. A macro perspective emphasizes the seeds’ juicy texture and natural shine, making them look fresh and appetizing.

The photography possibilities that drones offer are amazing. This image was taken in Oltrepo Pavese and captures the hills of Poggio Pulegana from a bird’s eye view. A magical place where great wine is produced and where you can spend wonderful moments interacting with nature and friends. I shoot at dawn and dusk to capture these lights and enjoy these places to the fullest in silence and admiration.

Golden berries, juicy mandarins and daffodils are arranged with white flowers symbolizing rebirth, a symphony of approaching spring.

Domed cake decorated with piped buttercream, edible gold splash and fresh morello cherries

A literal representation of a fish cake. It’s a completely different image than you would imagine just by reading the title, but it’s still beautiful in its own way.

In Tanzania’s Eastern Rift Corridor, water moves silently and repeatedly without witnesses, as love often does. The father rides home in his car across the cracked ground near Lake Eyasi with the one thing his family cannot postpone. Each trip will help you improve your health, fitness, and connect the days together. In a landscape shaped by drought, care becomes logistics and the struggle for survival continues.

The New Rice Festival, celebrated during the harvest season in northern Vietnam, is a moment of gratitude. Freshly harvested rice is prepared and served with traditional foods, sticky rice, cakes, and tea in gratitude for the sustenance and continuity of life of the land and ancestors.

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