How to Become a Hasselblad Master? I've Summarized the Three Common Traits of Award-Winning Photographers!

How do you become a Hasselblad Master? How do you win an international photography award?

In today's tutorial, Thomas will analyze this year's 6 winning sets from the Hasselblad Masters competition.

And try to summarize the three common traits that all award-winning photographers share!

Video

▶ Watch the video tutorial on Bilibili

This is the illustrated companion to the video above. Thomas himself is a 2024 Hasselblad Masters winner in the Landscape category. Reviewing this year's winning series across all six categories, he distills three traits the masters share: investing time in thought and refinement, finding an uncommon point of view, and making photographs that mean something. The full gallery of winners sits below; the three lessons are unpacked here in video order.

First trait: good photographs truly demand invested time, thinking, refinement and craft (the key-point card at 1:10 in the video).

01 The Sediment of Time

Professional contests judge series, not singles — one frame may ride on luck, but a series tests subject, taste and long accumulation. Thomas's three Landscape entries came from more than forty journeys on the Qinghai-Tibet and Lhasa-Nyingchi railways, nearly one hundred thousand frames distilled through agonizing comparison: all horizontal for consistency, balancing decisive moments and wildlife against differentiation. Stephen Shore's 'American Surfaces' and 'Uncommon Places' embody snapshot versus constructed composition — Thomas's winning peach-blossom frame merges both, with the old green trains now replaced by Fuxing bullet trains, a project he has shot since 2020.

The Architecture winner, a Finnish photographer, shows the same patience: based in Greenland since 2005 — nearly twenty years — her three winning frames come from HOME, a five-year project. For one house she ultimately submitted the sunny version rather than the gloomy one, a choice worth studying. The steep roof planes shed snow; the cabins, Greenland dogs and clotheslines reveal how architecture binds people and animals; and the trio views the lonely seaside houses from front, side and slope.

02 An Uncommon Point of View

In an ocean of images, standing out means combining your country's character with your own experience to find a view only you hold (the key-point card at 6:41 in the video). 'The Qinghai-Tibet Railway Through the Train Window' began simply: China has the world's longest high-speed network and is the only nation to run trains onto the plateau, so the scenery outside is unlike any other — Thomas made the window itself a frame within the frame, and a series was born.

The Portrait winner, an Indonesian commercial photographer, started from hobby: a passionate cyclist himself, he built a series around bicycles of every kind — sporting, racing, or vending carts peddled for a living. The three winners are carefully staged: a canvas backdrop stands behind each rider with the wider world beyond, placing them on-location yet on-stage at once, a wonderfully strange feeling. Localize the idea anywhere: no bicycle vendors where you live? Motorbike supermarkets and mobile stalls will do (at 7:45 in the video).

03 Make the Photograph Mean Something

Third: this year's jury president said the winners hold not just visual beauty but deep meaning and humanistic care (the key-point card at 9:27 in the video). Many asked about the 'cluttered bottles' in Thomas's winning frame — a second-class tray table crowded with cola, orange juice, mineral water, a thermos and tea. It asks a question: what did the railway actually bring to local people? Goods once hauled in via the 318 highway, costly and scarce, are now cheap and plentiful — the right to choose is the series' core statement.

The same thread runs elsewhere: architecture is ultimately about people; in portraiture the jury passed over fashion-polished blockbusters for figures returned to the street — livelier. The Art category was fiercely competitive, and its winner used compositing — the Masters do not limit post-processing, but RAW files are checked: no AI generation, and every frame must be your own. That photographer had to genuinely photograph wild animals like bears to stage the symbiosis, opposition and mutual gaze between humans and nature (at 11:33 in the video). Composite or straight, the goal is the same: present reality, our era, and our relationship with nature.

1. Series are won by long accumulation — the confidence to pick three from a hundred thousand comes from forty journeys and five years; 2. Viewpoints grow from where you stand: your country's character, your era, your hobbies and experience are the roots of difference; 3. Juries look for meaningful photographs — beyond visual beauty, depth and humanistic care; 4. Post-processing is unlimited but truth has a floor: RAW files speak, and AI-generated or stock-bought work will not carry you far.

Full Tutorial List:

Full Photography Tutorial Directory (updated 2024.4.16)

HD video:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Rx4y147Gg/

2024 Hasselblad Masters Winning Work