The prize winners for the ICOMOS-UK photography competition, Heritage at Risk: A Global Perspective, were announced at an event that included an exhibition of commended images. Well done to all winners.

Heritage at risk is a universal problem, but we are witnessing a universal response: cooperation across borders, disciplines and generations. That spirit is the essence of ICOMOS-UK, multinational, outward-looking, committed not only to bricks and stone but to the intangible cultural heritage that binds communities to place.

When we conceived this competition, there were three aims:

1. To bear witness – to capture the fragile beauty of sites that stand on the brink, so their stories are not lost to silence.
2. To invite fresh eyes – to bring new, often younger, photographers into the heritage conversation and spark content that can travel on today’s social platforms.
3. To prove that distance is no barrier – our organising team and judges span half the globe, yet with shared digital tools we built a truly international showcase.

In just a few months we gathered over 100 entries from five continents. Each image was blind-scored against clear criteria; every photograph that reached 90 points or more was shortlisted. A final virtual round-table—held across four time-zones—produced the agreement on the winners and special commendations.

The prize-winners

First place: ‘Towers of Silence’ by Karolina Sinéad Johansson
South of Yazd, Iran, a wind-scoured ritual house rises from the desert. It was here that Zoroastrian mourners once gathered before the bodies of their loved ones were returned to the elements. The practice ended in the 1960s, yet Karolina’s lens captures a hush so powerful you can almost hear the desert breathe.

Second place: ‘Detaille Pup Pen’ by Lesley Johnston
On Detaille Island, Antarctica, hoar frost feathers a timber dog pen while icebergs drift like silent sentinels beyond. The image aches with cold, yet its warmth lies in the devotion of those who built and tended this outpost, now threatened by rising seas.

Third place: ‘View from Suakin Island’ by Kate Ashley
Across a glass-still bay in Sudan, the last echoes of Red Sea coral-rag architecture glow at sunset. Kate’s photograph is part postcard, part plea: save this place before the tide of neglect washes it away.

Special commendations:

• Karolina Sinéad Johansson and Kate Ashley each submitted several outstanding entries—thank you for your range and dedication.
• Hugo Target: Stone survey of the “Athens of the North”, Edinburgh World Heritage Site.
• Mogens Ulderup: Instituto Marchiondi, Milan—Vittoriano Viganò’s 1957 masterpiece, listed yet derelict.

All of the shortlisted photographs can be seen on the video here.

Our gratitude to our volunteer working group who stitched this project together from living-rooms, cafés, and airport lounges—your generosity is the engine of ICOMOS-UK; to our international judging panel, who brought perspectives from five countries and judged with rigour, compassion, and open minds; and to every entrant: you have given us images that are art, record, evidence, and—most of all—memory.