Leica Picture of the Year
Since 2021, Leica Camera AG has been choosing a Leica Picture of the Year taken by outstanding Leica photographers, who have been inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame. To date, twelve renowned photographers have been honoured with the Leica Hall of Fame award. With the aim of sharing a piece of this success with all Leica enthusiasts, each Leica Picture of the Year will be on offer exclusively at all Leica Galleries worldwide. These limited editions grant collectors and Leica friends alike the chance to build up a unique collection of great Leica photographs.
@Herlinde Koelbl
The German photographer’s most recent series is dedicated to nature: “In the long line of my projects, this is the first time that there are no people to be seen. Yet the main theme that characterizes my work has remained: change, transience,” Koelbl (*1939) says, speaking about the series that she has been putting together for almost ten years now. The motif that has been selected as Leica Picture of the Year 2024 does a wonderful job of demonstrating this approach: the shapes, colours and structures of the plants become visible in close-up, appearing mysterious, magical and abstract in the camera’s frame. Captured in the process of wilting, Koelbl’s precise compositions give the plants a whole new level of reality and perception. Another beauty emerges during the process of fading – nothing remains as it is. “A kind of visual archaeology that overlaps or even collides with the images or ideas we think we know,” the photographer muses. “The present and the past flow into each other. And in reappearance lies the future.”
New York City, USA 2000 © Elliott Erwitt_MAGNUM PHOTOS
Elliott Erwitt
The Leica Picture of the Year 2023 is an iconic shot by photographer Elliott Erwitt, which has also been on display in the Leica Hall of Fame exhibition at Leica Galerie Wetzlar since the Celebration of Photography. The black-and-white photograph was taken in New York City in 2000.