A scarlet starfish crowns dark hair emerging from the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. In Essència de la Mediterrània, 16-year-old Gala Vilarrasa Richard captures that suspended moment when the marine world seems to anoint the human. The image astounds with its maturity. Elsewhere, a child and her father splash about in an urban fountain: Retorn a la infància freezes this fleeting exuberance, so particular to life’s earliest years.
The series “Creixement”– Catalan for “Growth” – unfolds four visual metaphors in which a close-up of a face biting into an incandescent orange converses with a street scene. Michel Poivert, photography historian and jury president, hails it as “an exercise both impulsive and considered, one that trusts images and their power of resonance.”
Anne-Lise Broyer, recipient of the 2024 Prix Niépce, detects “a photographic writing that already knows how to play across several registers and combine them – strength and fragility, mirroring the two ages when we do not yet know and when we no longer know.” Herself a 2024 laureate and juror for this edition, Lynn Salvat concurs: “I find this series quite daring and singular, and therein lies all its beauty.”
Also 16, Mathieu Vernier claims second place with “lost in”, a quadriptych in which solitude unfolds through existential vignettes. On a playground surface splashed with pop colours, a teenager straddles a spring horse meant for toddlers, like some forlorn urban cowboy: (lost in) transition crystallises the dereliction of the in-between years. Then two faces draw close in amber half-light, cigarettes touching to share a flame: (lost in) relation captures the clandestine intimacy of a budding complicity.
Three pensive silhouettes underscore the coldness of raw concrete architecture in (lost in) socialisation, while four young people pose in a golden wheat field, surrounded by incongruous objects – a lamp, a guitar, a vintage camera – for (lost in) emancipation. Michel Poivert sees in it “a generous and beguiling evocation of existential questioning,” praising “the sense of staging, of crafting a distinctive atmosphere.” Lynn Salvat enthuses: “This series is perfect to me. The message is profound, well rendered, in a distinctive style.”
With “Une vie en 4” (“A Life in Four”), third-place laureate Luka Piaud opts for taxonomic rigour. His still lifes inventory the totem-objects of each epoch: soft toy, coloured felt-tips and tiny shoes for childhood; school diploma, video game controller, handball and young firefighter’s uniform for adolescence; MacBook, white shirt, polished dress shoes and professional firefighter’s gear for adulthood; yellowed photo albums, slippers, knitted cardigan and pétanque balls for retirement.
Michel Poivert discerns in this work “a visual sociology brimming with poetry,” while Anne-Lise Broyer commends “a simple, conceptual response perfectly attuned to the theme,” adding that “the precision in the still-life compositions immediately draws us into a genuine questioning of time.” Lynn Salvat, in turn, confesses to having loved this series for its “true coherence,” and its evolution that poetically exposes “a minimalist representation of each great period of our lives.”
Delphine Piovant, founder of the fine-art printing laboratory D-Images, and Benoît Pelletier, editor of Process magazine, rounded out this exacting jury with their technical and editorial expertise. The special nomination The Dreamers & La Kabine, dedicated to young people from the South of France, honours fifteen-year-old Soan Beltran for “Doudou”.
In this black-and-white series, a stuffed animal traverses the ages: surrounded by its plush fellows in the abundance of The Beginning of Life, then solitary among exercise books at Starting School, squeezed between ring binders in Secondary School, and finally abandoned in a cone of light against absolute darkness for The End.
Last but not least, 16-year-old Charlie Frapolli-Denis earns second place with the devastatingly effective series “A travers l’usage” (“Through Use”). Four hands against a white background tell the tale of time’s wear: the plump palm of childhood, the adolescent hand adorned with a silver ring, the adult hand with carmine-red nails, and finally that of old age – veined, mottled, yet still graced with tender pink.
Founded in Paris, the association Rêve champions photography among young people through education and exhibitions. With “The Dreamers,” its flagship competition, it unveils new talents aged twelve to sixteen each year, hailing from greater Paris and the PACA region, offering them training, portfolio reviews and professional mentorship.
This year’s top three laureates will benefit from a self-publishing workshop at the Lavoir Numérique led by Andrea Eichenberger, a Hahnemühle France portfolio, an image review by the Circulation(s) festival, and a half-day session at amap studio. Soan Beltran and Charlie Frapolli-Denis will present their work at the 2026 Festival Off Arles. Enough to nurture vocations already finely honed. The rest is theirs to write.
“The Dreamers 2025” exhibition is on show at La Moulinette gallery in Paris until February 10, 2026.
