At the 2026 Picture of the Year gala in Stockholm, DN photographer Alexander Mahmoud was named Photographer of the Year, and his image from southern Israel won Picture of the Year. Several other photographers from newspapers like Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter also received awards in various categories. The gala was organized by the Press Photographers' Club within the Swedish Union of Journalists.
The Picture of the Year gala took place on the evening of Thursday, March 12, 2026, in Stockholm. Alexander Mahmoud from Dagens Nyheter emerged as the big winner, receiving Photographer of the Year and Picture of the Year for an image taken on October 7, 2025, in Sderot, southern Israel. The photo depicts a woman in a sunhat sitting in a plastic chair with her back to the camera, three kilometers from northern Gaza, where a column of smoke rises against the sky on the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. The jury motivated Picture of the Year by noting that the calm imagery highlights conflicting perspectives in an ongoing catastrophe.
Mahmoud also won first prize in everyday life image abroad for the same photo and in news reportage abroad for images from the arrest of a Swedish pedophile in the Philippines. He commented: 'Winning these prizes feels overwhelming. I am incredibly happy, even though the assignments deal with horrific and touching subjects.' Dagens Nyheter secured a total of 16 prizes through ten photographers.
Aftonbladet claimed four first places. Pontus Orre won Picture of the Year in sports for an image from the Sweden-Switzerland World Cup qualifier in October at Strawberry Arena in Stockholm. Magnus Wennman received first prize in domestic everyday life reportage for the feature on Annika, 87, who decided to die, and in foreign everyday life reportage for images about Swedish electric mopeds in Ghana. Pavel Koubek won Picture of the Year in news reportage for images from the school shooting at Campus Risbergska in Örebro on February 4, 2025.
Expressen's Anna-Karin Nilsson won domestic everyday life image for a photo of 21-year-old Maja with post-COVID and suspected ME, bedridden for three years. The honorary award went to documentary filmmaker Maud Nycander for her unique gaze on the human condition. Prizes were presented by, among others, Annie Lööf and Janne Andersson.
