Gabriela Torres Ruiz from Mexico City beat photographers from 191 countries to take this year’s title.

The fifth year of the competition also saw UK portrait photographer Briony Teasel named winner of the Early Entry Award.

Ruiz won the $75,000 contest for a series of diptychs built around a theme of ‘silence and meditation’.

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The competition was organised by SeeMe, a community of artists and photographers with 1.2 million members.

SeeMe founder William Etundi Jr said: ‘Torres Ruiz´s work has a certain feeling of magic to it. They are the kind of photographs you lean into, get lost in, and wonder at the brilliant mind who could compose such clear visions.’

Ruiz said: ‘Over the last few years I have been looking for natural landscapes and spaces that suggest an idea of silence. I’m Inspired by painters from the 19th century.

‘Through my photography I attempt to evoke meditation by combining visual material in a way that resembles the arrangement of words in a poem.’

To view the best entries in this year’s competition visit https://www.see.me/exposureaward/

[Photo credits: Gabriela Torres Ruiz]