Tonina Ryan, Inside Out: Alone in the City (SINGLE SHOT 2026)

Paris is one of the busiest cities in the world - yet here is a man in the heart of the city alone. The building suggests the inner life of the man with its inside-out architecture. When the Centre Pompidou first opened in Paris, the inside-out design was not a public hit. It was called many names, including grotesque – interestingly, the dismay over the design was similar to the initial reception the Eiffel Tower received years earlier, and now both are seen as representing the heart of Paris and as artworks in their own right. For this photographic image, I was called to include the man at the bus stop and a low point of view to highlight the building's scale, his shopping bag, and the urbanity of it all. I kept everything else in the streetscape empty and increased the building's colour, which is such a significant part of its character. I waited for the man to look out of frame to create a sense of aloneness you can feel in a city.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.