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September in August

Leebaeck Choi

South Korea

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For an August festival, the pond was drained, turning the exposed mud into a vast solar oven. The White Lotus—meant for September—was forced to wake early under the heat. What looks like a shimmering water path is in fact a thermal scar, where human schedules quietly overwrite nature’s rhythm.

Bronze

Honorable Mention

A Life of Absence interrogates the arc of a life through its remaining traces.

The series moves from a fractured beginning and a childhood dream to a preserved silhouette and a distorted memory,

culminating in a timeless question of existence.

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Nominee

A Life of Absence