Stirring emotions, bringing back personal memories, moving the viewer: good photographers can do all this – and much more besides. This was evident at the awards ceremony for this year’s Kitzingen City Photography Competition.
In the historic wedding hall, Lord Mayor Dr Enis Tiz emphasised that photography is an art form. Good photographs tell a story; at their best, they even open up a new perspective and a new world. “Your photographs reveal something that other people do not see at first glance,” he said, addressing the award winners present.
In parallel with the World Press Photo exhibition, the town of Kitzingen invites ambitious amateur photographers to take part in a competition every year. To mark the 20th exhibition in spring 2026, the theme was ‘20!’. An abstract and therefore quite challenging theme, as laudator and jury member Frank Freihofer remarked. In fact, the number of entries this year stood at around 80 – which was below the average for recent years. However, the participants had clearly put a great deal of thought into how best to interpret the theme visually. In the jury’s view, Ad van Wagensveld from Karbach succeeded best in this. He revealed that he and his wife had spent several hours working on the photograph ‘My Love at 20’ – the same man who had also taken first place back in 2025. The result is a ‘deeply moving’ photograph, as Freihofer put it. Thanks to the skilful composition, the viewer’s gaze is drawn straight to the photograph that van Wagensveld’s wife is holding, which shows her husband on their first holiday together several decades ago. “I really was 20 years young back then,” van Wagensveld assured us with a wink.
There is also a fascinating story behind the photograph taken by the runner-up, André Knudsen. The Würzburg native set off in his father’s footsteps to the North Sea island of Pellworm. For days on end, he photographed mementos such as ‘Grandma’s pot’ and, in doing so, relived his own past, as he recounted at the prize-giving ceremony. As a child, he loved his grandmother’s flour-based dessert – which was lovingly made in this very pot. The third-place winner, Robert Zimmer from Saarbrücken, was not present at the awards ceremony. However, Ehrenfried Schüller, Edwin Fuchs and Dr Ekkehard Römmelt, who also finished in the top ten, were there. Freihofer described Schüller’s photograph of the musician Johannes Enders in a jazz club in Neuburg as a “magnificent portrait”. In Budapest, Edwin Fuchs captured a “formally very appealing image” of a commemorative sculpture, whilst Dr Ekkehard Römmelt depicted a refrigeration unit in the ruins of an old Schwanfeld brewery, capturing it in just the right light and framing.
Next spring, the World Press Photo exhibition will be on display in Kitzing Town Hall for the 21st consecutive year. There will also be another municipal photography competition. One thing is already certain: the theme will definitely not be ‘21’.
The winners and the prizes:
Grand prize for Ad van Wagensveld: 2 nights’ accommodation at a hotel in Kitzingen, 1 voucher for two people for Aqua Sole and 1 admission ticket for two people to the German Carnival Museum
2nd place: André Knudsen: €100 ‘Schexs in the City’
3rd place: Robert Zimmer – a €50 Aqua-Sole gift voucher
4th place: Eddi Kieser – a €25 Aqua-Sole gift voucher
5th place: Ad van Wagensveld
6th place: Ehrenfried Schüller
7th place: Matthias Ernst – one World Press Photo catalogue each
8th place: Robert Zimmer
9th place: Edwin Fuchs
10th place: Dr Ekkehard Römmelt – a bottle of the tour guide’s wine in each case.