Free-to-use app Agora gathered the best shots from its latest competition, #Friends2020, where more than 16,328 photographers expressed what ‘Friendship’ meant to them through their camera lens.
Agora’s CEO and Co-Founder declared: “Friendship is a universal concept that can be perceived in a lot of different ways according to our culture, beliefs and life experience. At Agora, we see friendship in an infinite number of different ways but we also see what is common to all forms of friendship: love, trust, and support that is generated between living beings. The result of friendship is a shared, happier life.”
Which finalist will be the #Friends2020 hero? It’s now time to vote for your favorite photo on Agora! The author of the most voted photo will be awarded $1,000 on Tuesday, 11th February 2020.
May these photos brighten your day, and don’t forget to vote and comment on your favorite photo!
More info: agoraimages.com
#1 Friends Playing
Location: Zanzibar, Tanzania
by @sollylevi (UK)
#2 Lovely In The Rain
Location: Hoang Su Phi, Vietnam
by @nguyenvuphuoc (Vietnam): “These are the kind of wonderful moments I’ve experienced while traveling through the remote mountainous areas of my country: the children take shelter from the rain while their parents are working in the rice fields.”
#3 Friends Bathing
Location: Accra, Ghana
By @solomonjnr (Ghana): “It was after the rain. My nephews were done playing in the puddles that were in the house and had to wash themselves. It was during this process that I managed to capture that lovely moment. I actually made an entire series out of it. This is one of the many beautiful shots I got from that day. The mutual act of them enjoying a shower together depicting the unity and bond between them. It takes understanding and agreement between people to share such moments together!”
#4 Friendship
Location: Kendari City, Indonesia
by @rahmadladae (Indonesia): “I spotted these three boys from the nomadic Bajo tribe studying together in a mangrove tree, always happy to spend time together wherever they are.”
#5 Feline Friends
Location: Athens, Greece
By @georgeako (Greece): “These two stray cats are true friends. They do everything together: eat, play, sleep, walk… It was funny how these cats woke up when I started to shoot then and stretched simultaneously.”
#6 Friends Are Up To Infinity
Location: Rapti, Nepal
By @alexishrestha (Nepal): “I snapped my two best friends walking over the suspension bridge on a cold morning. No one is really able to live alone – friendship is one of the most important things on earth!”
#7 Friends
Location: Isle of Harris, Scotland
by @joncleave (UK): “Seals are social animals and can be found in small groups to entire colonies. Spotting these two together on a patch of seagrass off the Hebridean coast with nothing else around made me think of true friendship. Friends come in all shapes and sizes. We often think about humans only having friendships as it’s something we can relate to – but to see wildlife stick at it together is even more inspiring.”
#8 Friendship
Location: Canning, West Bengal, India
by @pranab_basak (India): “Kids are always happy to play with pets. This village boy was embracing a goose, surprisingly the goose didn’t complain.”
#9 Old Friend
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
by @ptkhanhhvnh (Vietnam): “This old couple has been living together for many years. They work together all day long. They also raise a few animals and treat them as friends. They have a simple but happy life, sharing everything with each other. Friendship really matters in life, at this old age one really needs a friend.”
#10 Puppy, The Little Judge
Location: Puruliya, India
by @debchak (India): “These kids were playing a traditional Indian game with the puppy sitting and observing the game just like a referee would do. They always stick together, even if they are very poor they share all daily food with their pet. Wherever they go, they bring their puppy along. If I win the prize, I will buy some camera gear and donate a part of it to these innocent kids who haven’t got no appropriate clothes but a heart full of love for humans and animals.”
#11 Being Friend
Location: Kayseri, Turkey
By @fdilekuyar (Turkey): “The little calf and the little girl have a one-of-a-kind friendship. In Anatolia, children always find best friends in their animals. When you look at the photo, you can see the unique friendship between them.”
#12 Help Each Other
Location: Jember, Indonesia
by @san_san (Indonesia)
#13 Friends
Location: Madrid, Spain
by @evablanco (Spain): “Here’s a friend of mine, Daniela and her cute border collie dog, Tucca. They were hanging on the hammock and Tucca was very happy to be there with her owner. She kept moving all the time, which made them almost fall on the floor a few times. It was a funny session!”
#14 Never Ending Friendship
Location: Rumpin, Java, Indonesia
by @georock888 (Indonesia)
#15 Play
Location: Kawa Town, Myanmar
by @kyawmyintthan (Myanmar): “When I visited Kawa Town, I found this lotus pool acting as a playground for local children. Firstly, I checked how deep the pool was, then I stepped in to take this picture!”
#16 Little Ballerinas
Location: Voronezh, Russia
by @tinozavrus (Russia): “This photo was taken during my daughter’s ballet class when the little ballerinas were having a break. These two are the bestest friends on Earth, I think you can tell from the photo!”
#17 The Most I Can Do For My Friend Is Simply Be His Friend
Location: Kakamega, Kenya
by @wissah (Kenya): “Friends don’t let each other wander in the dark alone. These two are schoolmates – every weekend, since its a day off from school, they have a responsibility to go grazing animals/cows in a nearby forest. Here they were walking back home from the forest, both happy and smiling while holding hands, having achieved something for the weekend. Making it to Agora’s top 50 is already a win for me… but winning the prize would be a win for both Isaya and Kevin (as pictured) as the prize will go settling part of their school fees and as well as buying them new clothes as they come from poor families.”
#18 Friendship And Childhood
Location: Rangpur, Bangladesh
by @mdshafiulislam (Bangladesh)
#19 My Best Friend
Location: Bromo Mountain, Indonesia
by @priyowiddi (Indonesia): “The beautiful bond between a man and his horse. This Tenggerese man, a nomadic herder, travels across Mount Bromo every day with his best friend.”
#20 Fishing On Dong Mo Lake
Location: Dong Mo Lake, Hanoi, Vietnam
by @anhtrungqng (Vietnam)
#21 Friendship
Location: Moscow, Russia
by @nikybwd
#22 Mountain Camp
Location: Indonesia
by @dcmith (Indonesia)
#23 Playing
Location: Hpa-an, Myanmar
by @swetun (Myanmar)
#24 Bien Acompañado
Location: Sarlat, Francia
by @paulaaranoa (Argentina): “I wanted to convey precisely the friendship between human beings and dogs. Every day these two take their time to walk together through the almost empty streets of Sarlat. They were seen to be calm, enjoying the moment and not rushing. It felt that it was a special moment between two best friends.”
#25 Friends Getting Wet
Location: Manila, Philippines
by @ froirivera (Philippines): “It started to rain heavily as I looked outside my balcony, and I saw these kids playing in the flooded street. Friends enjoy their time together rain or shine! If I get to win the $1,000 USD prize, I’d donate part of it to my fellow Filipinos who have been affected by the recent eruption of the Taal Volcano.”
#26 Just Hold My Hand
Location: Vinnytsia, Ukraine
by @drummer_vn (Ukraine): “Two kids holding hands and looking in the same direction: that’s what friendship means to me.”
#27 Lift
Location: Saint Tropez, France
by @sixcentdouze (Monaco): “My girlfriend and I were playing with the perspectives thanks to our drone – we had so much fun doing this shot, so I wanted to get a funny pose!”
#28 Friends
Location: Tbilisi, Georgia
by @damiane (Georgia): “Happiness is only real when shared with your friends!”
#29 Playing With A Traditional Car From Coconut Tree
Location: Mt.Bromo, Probolinggo, Indonesia
by @priantopuji (Indonesia): “They are the children of Javanese people living around Mt.Bromo. I wanted to show the happiness of those kids when they play with traditional toys in their homeland, running off on the sand dunes.”
#30 Running On The Sand Dunes
Location: Nam Cuong, Vietnam
by @trungphamvn (Vietnam)
#31 Lovely
Location: Chin State, Myanmar
by @naingtunwinbagan (Myanmar)
#32 Have Fun Together
Location: France
by @photolivestudio (France): “Shooting with these children was a game to awaken their imagination and to have fun. The deal was: you are the models, you have to think about poses, you consult each other and the photographer mustn’t say a word, just shoot! The children showed a lot of imagination; the shooting turned into a game and the natural took over. I was not prepared to take this photo; I had to adapt the softboxes and especially find a stepladder because the children were lying on the floor! The last surprise they gave me was their grimaces when I started to shoot.”
#33 Le’ts Go, My Friend
Location: Canning, West Bengal, India
by @tatha11 (India): “Friendship is the main story of this photo. In the evening time, two friends were coming back home holding each other tightly in darkness. Could you guess that the light in the background was coming from a bike?”
#34 Pair Of Friends
Location: Deerfield Beach, Florida, USA
by @piercegainey (USA): “Friendship can be seen everywhere! From simple things like going on a paddleboard session to helping your friend out in need! For this shot, it wasn’t really planned but worked out so well! I was trying some other photos and this surprisingly turned out to be the best and it wasn’t even planned.”
#35 Swimming With Friends
Location: Bursa, Turkey
by @banudiker (Turkey): “They were just swimming and having a chat while I was on my balcony, and I thought it looked sweet so I took the photo. They seemed to be old friends that met again after a long period of time.
#36 Beach BBQ
Location: Les Minquiers, Jersey, UK
by @bamperspectives (UK): “The photo features a group of my creative friends who decided to head out to this deserted sandbar and set up a BBQ, and have food, drink, music, and just an amazing day in the sun away from it all! I really wanted to portray the sense of friends coming together to enjoy each other’s company and how this is often done around food as that is one of those few things that we all have in common, we need to eat, so doing it as socially as possible in the sun with an amazing chef friend knocking out some fresh local ingredients was just perfect. If I was lucky enough to become a hero, I would use the prize to travel for photography. Living on an island that is only 9×5 miles in size means that the photographic options are limited, and I would really love to experience other cultures and landscapes that would help progress my photography and test my skills in new environments.”
#37 Best Friend
Location: Quantock Hills, Somerset, UK
By @keanudrone (UK): “My dad is my best friend and we run the @Keanudrone account together. We wanted a photo of us and the drones and this is the outcome. I love it! Although shortly before this photo was taken, my dad crashed one of the drones into a tree.”
#38 Friends For Life
Location: Bristol, UK
by @perksy12 (UK)
#39 Friends Forever
Location: Sentani, Papua, Indonesia
by @barcerumkabu (Indonesia)
#40 Chilled Days
Location: Port Barton Palawan, Philippines
by @alanmills91 (UK): “The two people on the picture are very close friends that I had the pleasure to meet when I was travelling the Philippines. On the morning of the shooting, it was the 1st time I had met the girls and we all had been getting quite well. We spent the whole day on a beach where I wanted the girls to have a photo that would sum up the day, and to show their friendship from another point of view. The big smiles on their faces made this shot even better than just the pure beauty of the surrounding area.”
#41 Tunnel Vision
Location: Shanghai’s subway tunnel, China
by @panvelvet (USA)
#42 Enjoying
Location: Upper Dir Park, Pakistan
by @adeelchishti (Pakistan): “I traveled to Upper Dir Park where these schoolboys were enjoying simple moments of life. They were enjoying nature in their own way, not in the scheduled and regular way. I think this is the real art in which they were living whether they know it consciously or not. Because we cannot bound art in specific phases or limitations.”
#43 Friends Freedom
Location: Lakshmipur, Bangladesh
by @azoicraw (Bangladesh): “Friendship is one of the most important things in life. In this picture, we can see a group of young friends playing after a day of work by the river. In this area, children from fishermen families don’t have access to proper education as they are usually required to work with their parents throughout the day.”
#44 Sunset Stroll
Location: Skaket Beach, USA
by @benskaar (USA): “This was taken during a beautiful sunset at low tide. I wanted to convey a sense of compassion and friendship. I noticed this group having a good time and I thought it would make for a great photo!”
#45 Community Over Competition
Location: Windsor, USA
by @andyleclerc (USA): “I planned out this photograph using Google Earth to find the perfect location for such an aerial shot and get the best shadows possible for my shooting. As you all know photography can be competitive, so I always like to collaborate with friends who also happen to be drone/nature photographers. One shouldn’t worry about being outshined by helping another creative, instead, put our egos aside and be willing to help one another. Because at the end of the day that’s what matters, strength is better in groups, not singularity.”
#46 Friends
Location: Nam Cuong, Vietnam
by @Tochihung (Vietnam): “It was lovely to see this group of friends running on the sand dunes near their home on an early morning.”
#47 Happy Hours
Location: Madhabdi, Bangladesh
by @momin21a (Bangladesh): “When it comes to friendship, age doesn’t matter. Kids love to play and have someone who can do things as per their wish. Here are an uncle and his nephew having a conniving moment in the bright fields of Madhabdi. “
#48 Try To Fly
Location: Kushtia, Bangladesh
by @mdabirhasan (Bangladesh): “Friendship means trying to fly together. If I get to win the #Friendship2020 contest, half of my prize will be given to the Rohingya refugees who are facing a difficult situation in my country right now.”
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