14 Acceptances and 4 Awards at Portugal Circuit 2026

Another set of international photography competition results has arrived, this time from the four salons of Portugal Circuit 2026, held under IAAP 2026/414 patronage.

Across the four independent juries, my submitted photographs received a total of 14 acceptances and 4 awards.

The awarded photographs were:

• Last stand — Salon Honorable Mention, Portugal
• Walk the dog — Salon Honorable Mention, China
• Departure — Salon Silver Diploma, Netherlands
• Walk the dog — Salon Bronze Diploma, Ireland

I am especially pleased that several images performed well on one of their first competition appearances under these titles. Last stand received an Honorable Mention right away, while Departure was awarded a Silver Diploma.

Walk the dog received awards from two different juries: an Honorable Mention in China and a Bronze Diploma in Ireland. Once again, it is a good example of how differently independent juries can respond to the same photograph.

Other accepted works included Morning shift and Shadow parade, both continuing the strong street photography direction within this series of entries.

Last stand – The Last Sentinel

Last stand is particularly meaningful to me because the photograph is also currently featured in my shop.

In the shop, the image is available as The Last Sentinel: a solitary, characterful tree standing in a misty landscape, almost like a portrait. The composition is simple, but the tree has a strong presence — perhaps one of the reasons why the photograph also works well in a competition context.

The Last Sentinel is available as a ready-to-hang canvas print in several sizes.

👉 The Last Sentinel – canvas print

The product page also shows the photograph itself and detail images of the finished sample canvas.

Four salons, four different juries

One of the most interesting aspects of a circuit is that the same photographs are judged independently by several juries. This makes it especially revealing to see how differently the same image can perform from one salon to another.

Walk the dog, for example, received two awards in the same circuit, while other photographs stood out to individual juries. For me, this is always a useful reminder that a competition result is not only about the “quality” of a photograph, but also about how a particular image meets the visual preferences of a particular jury.

I am also pleased that the street-category entries performed strongly again. In international competitions, dedicated street and urban categories are often worth paying attention to, as they can provide a better context for photographs that may be less prominent in a general open category.