The Citiestobe Photo Award is a triennial international urban photography competition inviting images that portray cities in all their challenging, yet inspiring complexity.

The award was created in 2019, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Anteverti — the Barcelona-based urban innovation consultancy behind Citiestobe. It emerged naturally from years of close engagement with urban realities, and from a shared belief: that artistic creation is a powerful way to understand, question and reimagine contemporary urban life.

Photography offers a unique lens through which to observe cities closely — attentive to nuance, contradiction and everyday experience. Through the Citiestobe Photo Award, we support photographers and visual storytellers who place the city at the centre of their work, and we give visibility to images that move beyond reductive narratives to reveal the multiple layers shaping urban experience today.

The inaugural edition, celebrated in 2020 received 533 photographs from more than 60 countries. The First Prize was awarded to Roman Demyanenko for 'Vorkuta', an image reflecting on the volatility of urban realities, which became part of Anteverti’s private urban photography collection.

The second edition, in 2023, confirmed the growing international reach of the award, with 1,189 photographs submitted from 94 countries. The First Prize was awarded to Nathalie Daoust for 'In the Shadow of the Big City', a powerful visual testimony on the impact of climate change on urbanization processes and traditional ways of life.

Together, these editions form a growing visual archive within Citiestobe, inviting us to look more carefully at the cities where our future is already taking shape. The third edition is expected to be launched in 2026.

Explore the editions archive below: