2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Description

To celebrate its continued presence as a leading global photography competition, three new categories for 2019 are announced.

All category winners of the Professional, Open, Youth and Student competitions will receive digital imaging equipment from Sony. In addition, cash prizes of ​$25,000 (USD) will be presented to the ​Photographer of the Year and $5,000(USD) to the overall Open competition winner.

Photographers worldwide are invited to submit to the Awards’ four competitions:

1. Professional​ — outstanding bodies of work between 5-10 images across ten categories
2. Open​ — rewarding the world’s best single images across ten categories
3. Youth​ — a single brief for emerging talent aged 12-19, and
4. Student — for photography students across the globe.

The National Awards program will also reward local photographic talent.

The 2019 Awards is marked by the introduction of two challenging new categories in the Professional competition: Brief ​and Documentary.

Brief ​will test photographers abilities to compose a body of work on a specific theme. The inaugural theme of this category is ‘Identity’.

Documentary ​is a new category for bodies of work portraying facts about a chosen subject, giving insight into contemporary issues and news. In choosing these new categories, the Awards hopes to continue appealing to a diverse range of contemporary photographers.

In the Open competition a new ​Creative category has been introduced and the Awards welcome Culture Trip and Eurostar as category partners.

Photographers have until 30 November 2018 to enter the Student competition, 4 January 2019 for the Open and Youth competitions, and 11 January 2019 for Professional.

All winning and shortlisted photographers’ works will be exhibited at the annual Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition in London and will then be toured internationally. The winning images will also be published in the annual Awards’ book.

Created by the World Photography Organisation, the Sony World Photography Awards are an authoritative voice in the industry. Celebrating the best contemporary photography from the past year, the Awards give vast exposure, visibility and opportunity to photographers worldwide on an annual basis. ​ Sony supports the Awards to help the continued development of photographic culture throughout the world, celebrating the best of past and present practitioners, as well as giving a global platform to today’s talent.