Spain's Ministry of Culture has awarded the 2026 National Photography Prize (Premio Nacional de Fotografía) to the Galician photographer Vari Caramés. The decision was announced on October 13, 2026, following a proposal by the jury that met that day.
In its citation, the jury pointed to the continuing relevance and contemporary character of his work, his contribution to art photography and his part in the renewal of Galician culture since the 1980s. It also singled out how he widened photography's expressive range through stains, reflections and his characteristic blurring, bringing the medium close to pictorial abstraction, as well as the personal visual poetry and recognizable world that run through his career.
Caramés was born in Ferrol in 1953 and is self-taught. At 15 he was given a manual Voigtländer camera by his father so that he could photograph his father's paintings, drawings and wrought-iron pieces, and he later used photography during his studies in technical architecture. He began exhibiting in A Coruña in 1980, and in 1986 he was one of six photographers from different countries invited to the second Fotobienal Vigovisións, which asked them to portray Vigo over the course of a week.
He has since shown his work individually in Madrid and Barcelona and in group exhibitions in Spain, Portugal and France. The ministry highlights his exhibitions "Algo. Nada. Siempre" at the Sala Canal de Isabel II in Madrid (2022), "Lugares" in A Coruña (2019), "Pasatiempo" in Santiago (2013), "Nadar" in A Coruña (2010) and "Recreo" in Santiago de Compostela (2008). In 2024 he published the photobook "Bosque animado."
According to the ministry, his photographs seek to make the everyday seem extraordinary, aiming to evoke rather than describe. The sea, the harbor, railway stations, the street and people pausing for a moment are among his recurring subjects. The Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC) in Santiago de Compostela, which holds his photograph "Natación" (2000) from the series "Color," marked the news by recalling the exhibition of his work it held in 2001.
The jury was chaired by Ángeles Albert, director general of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts. Previous winners include Carmela García, who received the prize in 2025 and sat on this year's jury, as well as Laia Abril, Cristóbal Hara, Pilar Aymerich, Ana Teresa Ortega Aznar, Montserrat Soto and Leopoldo Pomés.
