World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 - Budapest

When brutality meets reality

I visited the World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 in October here in Budapest, and as always, it hit hard. Year after year, this exhibition captures the cruelness of existing wars — and this time, it felt even more raw, more unbearable. Faces of people who lost everything. Cities turned into dust. Children’s eyes staring straight into yours, silently asking: what are we doing to the world?

There’s something about standing in front of those images that goes beyond empathy. It’s almost physical — a pressure in the chest, a weight on the heart. You walk among war-torn landscapes, stories of refugees, inequality, and disasters that stretch from Ukraine to Gaza, Sudan to Afghanistan. The World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 doesn’t shy away from showing what’s broken — and that’s exactly its mission.

And yet… I walked out with a thought that hasn’t left me since.

Where are the beautiful stories?

I know this isn’t about comfort. I understand that journalism — especially photojournalism — must reflect the truth, no matter how painful it is. Still, as I moved from frame to frame, I couldn’t help missing something.

Something like a glimpse of hope.

Something that reminds us that the world isn’t only about destruction and suffering. Because it’s not.

We live among everyday wonders: sunlight glimmering on a morning lake, the smile of a stranger, the energy of a child running free, or the quiet courage of someone rebuilding their life. These too are stories worth telling. They may not make the headlines, but they can heal souls.

The World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 made me realize how much I crave balance — the same way our planet does.

The Perfectly Imperfect Setting — Budapest Biodóm

The location couldn’t have been more symbolic. The exhibition took place in the unfinished Budapest Biodóm, a half-built, cold ocean of concrete and iron. The space itself looked like a war zone — stripped, silent, grey. It matched the brutality of the images almost too well.

Every echo of footsteps sounded like a reminder: this is the world we’ve built — raw, exposed, still under construction.

A Moment of Light: Gabriel Medina - also a World Press Photo 2025

And then there was one photo.

The only positive, life-filled image in the entire exhibition - at least for me. A shot of surfer Gabriel Medina at the Paris Olympics, bursting out of the water like a force of nature — looking cool, energy unstoppable.

That picture was pure oxygen. It radiated power, joy, freedom.

It reminded me of what I want to feel more often — that vibrant, unstoppable energy that makes you believe in life again. Because that’s what keeps us human. That’s what helps us not to drown in all the darkness.

Balance Is the Real Story

Maybe that’s the message I took home from the World Press Photo Exhibition 2025: we need both. We need to see the truth — even when it hurts — but we also need to see beauty, resilience, and life.

Because if we only tell one side of the story, we forget why it matters.

Let’s not just look at what’s wrong with the world. Let’s also capture what’s still right.

That’s what keeps our souls healthy. That’s what gives us strength to care, to help, and to move forward — even when the headlines don’t.