• Ten Professional category winners and finalists named
• Overall Open, Youth and Student winners announced
The World Photography Organisation has named the overall winners for the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards. The awards are a global platform for photography and provide a vital insight into contemporary photography today.
The news of the overall winners joins the March announcement of 2019’s ten Open competition category winners and 62 National Awards winners to complete the announcements of 2019’s awards. All winning, shortlisted and commended images can be seen at the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London till May 6 before going on a global tour.
All winners received Sony digital imaging equipment, publication in the winners’ book and their work will be shown as part of the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London.
The judges praised this year’s winners for giving expression and interpretation to the lives and issues faced across the globe. Mike Trow, Chair of the Professional competition, commented that this year’s submissions “provoked a lot of debate and interest amongst the jury” with works “pushing the boundaries of photography and challenging the perceptions and expectations of the audience.”
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| Source: Sony/World Photography Organisation.
Copyright: © Federico Borella, Italy,
Photographer of the Year, Professional, Documentary (Professional),
2019 Sony World Photography Awards. This image is part of the Five Degrees series. India, Tamil Nadu, May 2018. Rasathi,
the wife of Selvarasy, a farmer who committed suicide in May 2017 by
hanging himself in his own field. He got into debt with a cooperative
society. A study carried out by Tamma A. Carleton, and published by
PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) analysed
climate data from the last 47 years and compared it with the number
of farmer suicides in the same period. The research concluded that
changes in temperatures which have been occurring since the 1980s
have played a role in the decision by thousands of farmers to take
their own lives.
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The Photographer of the Year title and US$25,000 prize was presented to Italian artist Federico Borella for his series Five Degrees. Borella is an internationally-published freelance photojournalist with more than 10 years of experience as a news photographer and is also an educator in photography and photojournalism.
Five Degrees focuses on male suicide in the farming community of Tamil Nadu, Southern India, which is facing its worst drought in 140 years. Based on a Berkeley University study, which found a correlation between climate change and increased suicide rates amongst Indian farmers, Borella has explored the impact of climate change on this agricultural region and its community through poignant and powerful mixture of images depicting the farming landscape, mementoes of the deceased farmers, and portraits of those left behind.
Borella was selected from 10 category winners of the Professional competition. The overall winners of the awards’ Open (best single image), Youth and Student competitions were also revealed. His work was praised by the jury for its sensitivity, technical excellence and artistry in bringing to light a global concern.
Trow commented, “As global warming changes the face of life ever more rapidly - particularly in developing and undeveloped nations - the work of artists such as Borella becomes ever more needed.”
Produced by the World Photography Organisation, the Sony World Photography Awards are one of the world’s largest and most prestigious photography competitions. The 12th edition saw a record-breaking 326,997 submissions by photographers from 195 countries and territories, presenting the world’s finest contemporary photography captured over the past year.
Winners were selected for demonstrating artistic prowess and photographic expertise for series of five to 10 images, across 10 categories:
Architecture
Winner: Stephan Zirwes, Germany for a series, Cut Outs - Pools 2018
2nd: Tuomas Uusheimo, Finland
3rd: Peter Franck, Germany
Brief
Winner: Rebecca Fertinel, Belgium for a series, Ubuntu - I Am Because We Are
2nd: Christina Stohn, Germany
3rd: Edward Thompson, UK
Creative
Winner: Marinka Masséus, Netherlands for the series Chosen [not] to be
2nd: Leah Schretenthaler, US
3rd: Pol Kurucz, France
Discovery
Winner: Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy for the series Güle Güle
2nd: Boyuan Zhang, mainland China
3rd: Karina Bikbulatova, Russia
Documentary
Winner: Federico Borella, Italy for the series Five Degrees
2nd: Brent Stirton, South Africa
3rd: Mustafa Hassona, Palestine
Landscape
Winner: Yan Wang Preston, UK for the series To the South of the Colourful Clouds
2nd: Marco Kesseler, UK
3rd Kieran Dodds, UK
Natural World & Wildlife
Winner: Jasper Doest, Netherlands for the series Meet Bob
2nd: Christian Vizl, Mexico
3rd: Maela Ohana, France
Portraiture
Winner: Álvaro Laiz, Spain for the series The Edge
2nd: Massimo Giovannini, Italy
3rd: Laetitia Vançon, France
Sport
Winner: Alessandro Grassani, Italy for the series Boxing Against Violence: The Female Boxers Of Goma
2nd: Kohei Ueno, Japan
3rd: Thomas Nielsen, Denmark
Still Life
Winner: Nicolas Gaspardel & Pauline Baert, France for the series Yuck
2nd: Yiming Zhang, mainland China
3rd: Cletus Nelson Nwadike, Sweden
Open Photographer of the Year - Christy Lee Rogers
The Open competition celebrates the power of single images. Winning images are selected for their ability to communicate a remarkable visual narrative combined with technical excellence. Selected from 10 Open category winners as the most captivating standalone image, US-based photographer Rogers won US$5,000 for her work Harmony. Rogers is an internationally-exhibited artist known for using water and lighting in her photographic works to create dramatic effects.
Harmony is an image from the artist’s Muses series that was inspired by the beauty and vulnerability of humankind. In the image Rogers has used the contrasts of light, dark, colour, movement and cascading underwater bodies to create an ethereal scene reminiscent of Baroque painting.
Rogers said, “It's an honour to be recognised as a photographer, as for so many years most people referred to me as a painter or something unknown.”
Youth Photographer of the Year - Zelle Westfall
From the US, 18-year-old student Westfall was awarded for her image Abuot, a single image in response to the theme Diversity. Westfall said, “Abuot is my friend from school and she is one of the funniest people I know. In today's society, with skin bleaching products and colorism flooding the media, it's important to highlight the beauty of dark-skinned women who are often told that they are ‘too dark'.” The Youth competition was open to all photographers aged 12-19.
Student Photographer of the Year - Sergi Villanueva
Spanish student Villanueva was chosen by the judges for his photographic series La Terreta, a portrayal of his homeland through the local orange farming and harvesting process. Villanueva represented Universidad Jaume I and won €30,000 worth of Sony photography equipment for the institution.
Outstanding Contribution to Photography - Nadav Kander
The awards recognise Kander for his versatile, powerful and thoughtful contribution to the medium.
The World Photography Organisation is a global platform for photography initiatives. Working across up to 180 countries, it aims to raise the level of conversation around photography by celebrating the best imagery and photographers on the planet. The World Photography Organisation hosts a year-round portfolio of events including the Sony World Photography Awards and PHOTOFAIRS, international art fairs dedicated to photography with destinations in Shanghai, China and San Francisco in the US.
Explore:
The 2020 Sony World Photography Awards opens for entries 1 June, 2019. All entries are free. Register
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