Yuji Haikal wins the URBAN Book Award 2026 with an intimate account of memory and absence
We are delighted to announce that the URBAN Book Award 2026 goes to Yuji Haikal for Why Aren’t You Taking Photos Anymore?, chosen by the jury chaired by photographer Mihaela Noroc.
Why Aren’t You Taking Photos Anymore? begins with a question. In the last days of his life, Haikal’s father quietly asked him why he had stopped taking photographs. At the time, he did not grasp the weight of those words. He had given up photography almost ten years earlier, for no particular reason, simply drifting away from it. His father died in March 2020, and the question was left unanswered.
Over the years it kept coming back, sometimes gently, more often with a sense of guilt, until it could no longer be ignored. Haikal started photographing again, first with his phone and later with a second-hand rangefinder camera, walking the streets with no project in mind but with a need to reconnect. In the scenes he came across (people waiting, newspapers read over a drink, coffee, cigarettes, journeys, figures sitting alone) he recognised the gestures and routines that had shaped his father’s life. The book does not tell his father’s story: it shows how the memory of a person survives in the smallest details, and how it goes on shaping the way those left behind look at the world.
So far the book exists as a handmade limited edition of 100 copies, bound by the author himself, and it will be published on the occasion of Trieste Photo Days 2026.
Mihaela Noroc’s comment
The 2026 Book Award jury was chaired by Mihaela Noroc, author of The Atlas of Beauty, a remarkable project that for over ten years has been gathering portraits and stories of women all around the world. This is how she explained her choice:
Why Aren’t You Taking Photos Anymore? opens a door into the world of someone going through grief. Through a series of visual journeys, the book explores an experience that, sooner or later, touches all of our lives. Somehow, it allows us to understand and appreciate the photographer’s father, while honouring his memory and legacy. It is an extremely personal book, yet it speaks about something deeply universal.
Mihaela Noroc
The author: Yuji Haikal
Yuji Haikal is a self-taught photographer from Johor, Malaysia, who has been working since 2007. His academic background is in information technology, while his photographic practice has been entirely self-driven and shaped from the outset by a commitment to storytelling through images. He works mainly in black and white, building his images through contrast and composition, and counts among his influences Jim Marshall, the photographer who defined the visual language of live music.
In 2024 he was named Book Photographer of the Year at the International Photography Awards (IPA) and took first place in the Self-Published Book category with Why Aren’t You Taking Photos Anymore?, for which he handled the photography, design, binding and cover himself. The book has been shown at JIPFest, the IPA Best of Show exhibition, KLPF and the Exposure+ Dummybook Exhibition.
Alongside his work on books, Haikal has been documenting concerts and events since 2007. He has photographed Malaysian bands including OAG, Butterfingers, Laila’s Lounge and Komplot, as well as festivals such as Rock The World, Urbanscapes and Nusa Fest. His recent collaborations include Leica Store Malaysia and the Sound of Spirit edu-concert with Zainal Abidin. He is Vice President of the Pecah Pala Photo Club (PPPC), for which he organises workshops, photowalks and talks for the Malaysian photography community.
Honourable Mentions
Three further projects received an honourable mention for the strength of their narrative and visual construction:
Francisco Ubilla, Corners of Geometry
A street photography project built on the fleeting, silent alignments between people and urban space, in images made in Santiago, Palma de Mallorca, Lima, Madrid, Beijing and London. The book is a visual meditation on these quiet coincidences, where every gesture suggests a different way of seeing. Rather than documenting the city, Corners of Geometry offers a way of reading it, as a living score in which geometry and movement briefly align: an invitation to pause and rediscover the subtle beauty that emerges from the unnoticed rhythms of urban life.
Ludovit Graus, Cuban Diaries
A photographic homage to the people of Cuba and their daily lives, lived in ever harder conditions. Through intimate portraits and everyday scenes, Graus looks beyond the romantic image of the island familiar to visitors and reveals a country marked by shortages and hardship, where people hold on to their pride and their hope for a better life. In the streets of today’s Cuba, decaying colonial architecture, old cars and blackouts coexist with music and colour, giving the images a cinematic quality that never conceals the hardship beneath. The book is a tribute to the dignity and resilience of those who go on living, enduring and hoping in circumstances they did not choose.
Rudy Gadeyne, A Book of Man
A personal portrait of the Isle of Man, conceived in the tradition of photobooks that carry a single photographer’s vision, with Robert Frank’s The Americans as its declared model. Gadeyne documents the lives of the island’s inhabitants through a range of situations, without passing judgement: he observes and translates what unfolds before his eyes. The island becomes a metaphor for a society shown in many facets, with the sense of looking into a mirror and learning a great deal about yourself. A book that hopes to deepen appreciation of this singular place and its people.
