We are pleased to announce the winners of the inaugural BJP Breakthrough Photography Awards, our search for the world’s most talented students and recent graduates.

German photographer Felix von der Osten scooped the Undergraduate Series Award for his documentary project The Buffalo that could not Dream. Currently studying BA Photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Dortmund, this ongoing project began in the summer of 2014 when he spent time living with the community of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana.

British photographer Adama Jalloh won the Undergraduate Single Image for her street portrait of a young boy in south London. Taken from her ongoing series You fit the description, the work reflects on the frequency of police stop and search operations targeting young black and asian men. Jalloh is currently in her final year of BA Commercial Photography at Arts University Bournemouth.

Tanya Houghton took the Graduate Series Award for This Must Be The Place, which uses folded and re-photographed landscape images to explore contemporary cartography and the unseen lines of our journeys. She is currently studying for an MA in Photography and Urban Cultures at Goldsmiths University, London.

Finally, artist and portrait photographer Tim Pearse won the Graduate Single Image Award for his work Untitled (Shell). Graduating in 2012 from BA Photography at Plymouth College of Art, he works exclusively with analogue and alternative photographic processes to explore perceived truth and invented memory via a study of ambiguous forms.

“The standard of entries across all of the categories was really high,” says BJP Breakthrough judge Gemma Padley. “I was impressed by the breadth and scope of subjects covered, and the technical proficiency and creativity of submitted work. It’s exciting to see so much talent coming from universities and colleges all over the world.”

The competition was open internationally to photography students and recent graduates, and received over 1000 entries from 46 countries. The judges were BJP’s editorial director Simon Bainbridge, freelance photography writer Gemma Padley, award-winning photographer Laura Pannack, artist/publisher Lewis Chaplin, curator Leo Scott and theprintspace’s Sebastian Richter.

In partnership with Olympus, Free Range and theprintspace, each of the four winners will now exhibit their work at a dedicated BJP pop-up space at The Old Truman Brewery, East London as part of the Free Range Graduate Shows in June 2015.

BJP will also run the Breakthrough Sessions in the space, a series of free talks from leading photographers, curators, publishers, agents and writers on breaking into the professional photography industry.

Breakthrough Photography Awards at Free Range 2015

Opening night: Thursday 11th June 2015, 6-9pm

Address: Shop 13, Ely’s Yard,15 Hanbury Street, London, E1 9QR

For more details of the Breakthrough exhibition and events go to: www.bjpbreakthrough.com