Drone artist captures “vanishing beauty” in frozen landscape, becoming the Minimalist Photographer of the Year 2026
Polish photographer Marcin Giba used a drone to capture the “incredible forms” on the frozen lakes near his hometown of Rybnik, Poland – a natural phenomenon that he says is disappearing from winters in the area
The Minimalist Photography Awards 2026 has crowned Polish photographer Marcin Giba as the winner of the overall competition for his aerial depiction of a natural frozen phenomenon titled "The Last Winter". The series was produced by flying a DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone over frozen lakes near Giba's hometown of Rybnik, Poland, capturing the "incredible forms" created by nature on the icy waters.
Giba expressed his desire to document the "vanishing beauty" of snow in urban settings, stating that as snow in the city becomes "a fleeting, almost ephemeral phenomenon", he feels he is "documenting a vanishing beauty" through his photography. Marcin Giba secured the top spot in the competition, receiving €2,000 (approximately $2,300 / £1,715 / AU$3,200) and wider recognition at a winners' exhibition, to be announced at a later date.
Other notable winners this year include Bulgarian astrophotographer Mihail Minkov, who took first place in the "Night Photography" category with a series of stars over an Indigenous Bolivian woman at the world's largest salt flat, Salar de Uyuni. Minkov's stars reflected in the water-clad surface mirrored the Milky Way above the salt flat.
In the "Fine Art" category, architecture photographer Steffen Reichardt (Germany) placed first for a creative juxtaposition of a small chapel against the massive cooling towers of the nearby Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant in the Czech Republic.
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