When photographer Alejandro Cegarra set out for the US-Mexico border in 2018, he wanted to capture the struggles of migrants in a way that highlighted universally human emotions. After nearly seven years and 35,000 photographs, Cegarra’s The Two Walls series has earned the photographer a major global title – in a photography competition that he didn’t even enter.
Cegarra (@alecegarra) was recently awarded the 2025 Leica Oskar Barnack Award for the series, a global award that doesn’t rely on entries by the recipients themselves, but on nominations from other photographers. This week, the jury also awarded the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award, which considers only photographers under age 30, to Serghei Duve for his series on everyday nostalgia, Bright Memory.
