'Shot in low light, these images require immense skill to get right' – see the Travel Photographer of the Year 2025 and the stunning in-camera winning images

• Greek photographer Athanasios Maloukos scooped the top prize
• They entered two series of low-light images: 'Whirling Devotion' and 'Night of Sorrows'
• Judges billed the winner's portfolio as among the best they'd seen in the contest's 23-year history

Forget picture postcard views and Instagram-worthy shots of popular landmarks, the winner of this year's Travel Photographer of the Year scooped the top prize with an altogether different portfolio.

Greek photographer Athanasios Maloukos submitted two haunting series of low-light images: Night of Sorrows: The Yacente' Procession of Zamora, and Whirling Devotion: Rituals of Sufism in Anatolia.

Each series documents spiritual ceremonies in Spain and Turkey, respectively – the latter in particular beautifully captures a sense of motion and stillness with a masterful use of shutter speed – there's no editing trickery here, all the effects we see are achieved in-camera.

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Appropriate to the spiritual significance of the ceremony, these images go beyond what we see – we get a sense of quiet, and despite being on the outside looking in, the images are deeply intimate.

Maloukos said, "I am speechless seeing that one of my most intimate, spiritual personal projects have touched the judges of TPOTY."

For me, it's easy to see why, and you can judge for yourself from the selection of images below, and by following the link to Maloukos's Instagram page, where he unpacks what is happening in each spiritual ceremony he has documented.

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Rhythm and reverance

One of the contest's judges, Jeremy Hoare, described Maloukos's work as "one of the best over the last 23 years of these awards", while TPOTY founder Chris Coe further elaborated on the panel of judges' decision:

"These images require immense skill to get right," said Coe. "Shooting on the edge like this requires very careful use of shutter speed to selectively freeze and blur the movements in these two ceremonies.

"There's a sense of rhythm and reverence in the images, which is incredibly difficult to achieve. This is all achieved in camera without over-processing and conveys the depth and intensity of each moment."

I've included a selection of the other series Night of Sorrows: The 'Yacente' Procession of Zamora, below. Marking Holy Thursday, the series is equally haunting, with a style consistent with Maloukos's other bodies of work.

Athanasios Maloukos shoots with a Canon EOS R5 and EOS R7, paired with any one of the RF 24-70mm, RF 15-35mm f/1.8L IS USM, and RF 70-200mm lenses.

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The EOS R5 was released in 2020 and is still the camera that I see crop up the most among contest winners five years on – including the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2025.

It might well have been replaced by the EOS R5 Mark II, but these contests only reaffirm how incredibly capable the full-frame 45MP mirrorless camera is.

The entire collection of this year's winning images can be found at the TPOTY site. I also recommend checking out Athanasios Maloukos Instagram, link below, it's well worth a look.

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