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Unassigned Door

Tomohiko Funai

Japan

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Rows of brightly colored doors repeat across a strict architectural grid. At the center, a floating figure occupies a space that seems to belong to none of the identical units. The image reflects on individuality within ordered systems and the quiet tension between conformity and freedom.

Honorable Mentions

People’s Vote Award

During a quiet lunch break, gravity briefly seems to disappear. A floating figure drifts beneath a giant sushi display, where the colors of clothing subtly echo the surroundings: red with tuna, white with rice and wall, darker tones with the patterns behind. An ordinary moment turns gently surreal.

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Nominees

Zero Gravity Lunch

A woman in kimono floats among a field of crimson wagasa umbrellas while holding a traditional Japanese parasol. The presence of a broom introduces a subtle Western witch motif, blending cultures and folklore. The scene becomes a quiet dream where color, tradition, and imagination coexist.

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Crimson Reverie

Gravity appears to fail inside a structure. By reversing orientation, the photograph unsettles spatial certainty and invites the viewer to reconsider how much of “up” and “down” exists only in the mind.

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Nominee

Orientation Lost

A self-portrait caught between mirrors and time. Repetition becomes a structure, and the body is briefly held inside it. The image asks whether identity is something we move through, or something that quietly loops around us.

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Honorable Mention

Trapped in Repetition

A body suspended in front of a drawn image, aligned through color rather than context. The photograph explores how visual harmony can momentarily blur the boundary between representation and presence.

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Chromatic Alignment

Beneath a quiet sky and mirrored slabs of concrete, a coven floats in eerie unison—identical, motionless, entranced. Cloned not by science, but by magic, they hover as if mid-ritual, their brooms still beneath them. The silence is deafening, yet filled with invisible whispers.

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Synced by Spell

Multiple reflections of the self appear in the mirror, creating a labyrinth of identity. Light and shadow blur the line between seeing and being seen, challenging our sense of reality. The image asks: Is this the real me—or merely an illusion? A record of the self, suspended in uncertainty.

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Fractured Gaze

I rise before a lone torii, where the sea falls silent and the sky holds its breath. In Shinto, the gate invites the sacred—in this still moment, I offer myself, mid-ascent. A self-portrait of quiet surrender, between the seen and the invisible.

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Island of Ascension

What if gravity was reversed? Self-portrait levitation photograph.

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Bronze

Reversed Gravity

Each door takes you to a different part of the maze. What colored door would you choose next? Self-portrait levitation photograph.

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Silver

Game of Maze

Self-portrait, non-photoshopped levitation photograph.

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Wagasa Gravity

Self-portrait levitation photograph. Koinobori are carp-shaped streamers.  Families with boys fly Koinobori outside in honor of Children’s Day on May 5.  The carp is believed to be a lucky fish symbolizing life success so that families fly Koinobori wishing for good health and growth for their boys.