The Sony World Photography Awards, a competition for photography professionals and amateurs, has announced its 15th annual winner. The competition brings out outstanding series of photographs, celebrating both technical mastery and the author’s fresh look at the present.
In 11 years, the Sony World Photography Awards has grown into a powerful global photography event. The nominations are aimed at photographers of various levels. You can submit works made by photographic equipment of any brand. Participants are people of various ages – from 10 years old to 80 years old and more (winners of the award “For outstanding contribution to the development of photography”). Participation is free. Judges are members of the World Photographic Academy. The prizes are Sony photographic equipment (the total prize fund is 60 thousand dollars).
The Sony World Photography Awards 2022 featured over 340,000 submissions from 211 countries, with over 156,000 submissions from professionals and recognized masters of contemporary photography, the largest number of submissions in the history of the event. The exhibition of the finalists traditionally took place in London’s Somerset House.
The absolute winner of the Sony World Photography Awards photo contest is awarded the Photographer of the Year title and the Golden Aperture statuette, similar to the Palme d’Or for the best film in Cannes. This year it was Australian Adam Ferguson for Migrantes, a series of black-and-white portraits taken in Mexico while waiting to cross the US border. In February 2021, following a change in US leadership, migrants from Central and South America poured into the US-Mexico border. Photos circulated in the media of frightened people carrying their belongings, clinging to loved ones and caught in camera flashes.
Canadian Edward Burtynsky received a prize for outstanding contribution to photography. A selection made by the artist highlights the main works and themes of his remarkable 40-year career. These include epic scenes from his acclaimed Anthropocene series (2018), an exploration of human activity and its profound impact on the Earth and its systems (Oil cycle, 2009), images from the ongoing Africa series (2022) – a look at the African a landscape transformed by extensive resource extraction.
The architecture winner was Domagoj Burilovic from Croatia. In the Dorf cycle, Domagoj uses photomontage techniques to show the irony of how nature returns to its bosom abandoned settlements – the various buildings of Slavonia, a region that rapidly developed in the 19th century due to the wealth of local forests and lands. The shortlist for the nomination included Jason Au, Hong Kong; Serena Dzenis, Australia; Khalib Najib, Palestine; Rene Cassio Scholz, Germany; Mark Haley (Mark Henley), UK.
