Photographer & Storyteller of the Year 2025: Els Korsten
Els Korsten has achieved something truly remarkable this year: winning both our This is Reportage: Family Photographer of the Year and our Storyteller of the Year titles for 2025. Each of these awards is incredibly difficult to earn on its own; taking both in the same year is an exceptional accomplishment, and a testament to Els’s sensitivity, timing, and her instinct for real family storytelling.
With 15 Awards across the year — including 7 Story Awards — Els sits proudly at the very top of our newly announced Top 100 Family Photographers in the World 2025 and Top 20 Storytellers lists. Family reportage is notoriously demanding: unpredictable, intimate, fast-changing, and emotionally dense. To consistently achieve award-winning work within that environment takes not just skill but a deep understanding of connection, trust, and how families really are.
This is also Els’s third time being crowned our Storyteller of the Year. Story Awards are especially tough: 15–20 images that must hold together as a single, honest, unposed narrative, all of the same family. To excel in that format again and again — and to do so at this level — shows an extraordinary command of long-form documentary work and an ability to see not just moments, but meaning.
Below are all of Els’s winning Awards from 2025, and you can explore more of her work via her website or her TiR:F profile. We’ve also had the pleasure of interviewing Els on the Podcast.
