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2019 Sony World Photography Award Winners Announced

The 12th annual Sony World Photography Awards received a record-breaking 326,997 entries, submitted from 195 countries and territories, across ten categories. The World Photography Organization, who partners with Sony on one of the largest and most prestigious photography competitions in the world, announced the winners in an awards ceremony held at the Somerset House in London.

Bologna-based Italian artist Federico Borello won the coveted Photographer of the Year ?title for his series Five Degrees. The thought-provoking collection explores the plight of male suicide in the Southern India farming community of Tamil Nadu. The region experienced its worst drought in 140 years during 2016-2017. Borello’s collection of images, based on a study from Berkeley University, examined the parallels between climate change, rising temperatures, and increased rates of suicide.

Bologna-based Italian artist Federico Borello won the coveted Photographer of the Year ?title for his series Five Degrees. The thought-provoking collection explores the plight of male suicide in the Southern India farming community of Tamil Nadu.

Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition, which will showcase both shortlisted and winning images, is on show at Somerset House from April 18th to May 6th. It will move on to other international destinations, thereafter, including Japan, Italy, and Germany. Tickets for the London event can be purchased here.

Submissions for the 2020 competition will open Saturday, June 1st, 2019 and are free of charge.

Photographer of the Year and 1st Place, Documentary

Photo © Federico Borella, Italy, Photographer of the Year, Professional competition, Documentary, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

About the photo: This skull of a farmer who reportedly committed suicide, pictured above, was used during a protest in Delhi. Farmers held it high and demanded a drought relief package along with a loan waiver for peasants from the state.

Open Photographer of the Year

Photo © Christy Lee Rogers, United States, Open Photographer of the year, Open competition, Motion, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Rogers captured this image, underwater, in Hawaii as part of her Muses Collection. She used the surface of a pool as her canvas and leveraged effects such as the refraction of light, plus shooting at night, to create a dramatic scene she describes as ‘reality-bending.’

Youth Photographer of the Year

Photo © Zelle Westfall, United States, Youth Photographer of the Year, Youth, Diversity, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Abuot is the friend of the student photographer, 18, who was testing out her equipment. She immediately knew she had captured what she wanted in the initial shot.

In her own words: ‘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.”‘

Student Photographer of the Year

Photo © Samuel Bolduc, Canada, Student Photographer of the Year, Student Focus, 2018 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: The orange groves of La Terreta inspire a strong sense of pride in Villaneuva and the natives who ‘love our roots, the richness of our land, our culture, our people, our identity.’ This photo depicts the women who select the oranges that will be shipped to markets around the world.

Series Description: In Valencian, there is a word that describes pride for the land where I belong: La Terreta. A feeling that surrounds us all, be part of La Terreta is to love our roots, the richness of our land, our culture, our people, our identity.

Every time I go to La Terreta there is a sign that I see on the road that welcomes me home: the orange groves. That is why in this series I have focused on capturing daily life around the orange trees. From the farmers who plant and care for the trees to harvest the fruit, to the women who choose the oranges that will end up around the world.

The orange tree is the essence of my land, it maintains the feeling of belonging and leaves the door open to future generations, spreading a message about the value of taking care of what nature gives us as a part of our identity.

1st Place, Architecture

Photo © Stephan Zirwes, Germany, 1st Place, Professional competition, Architecture , 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Public pools are accessible by every class of people in Germany. The photographer has pleasant memories of summers spent in them during his childhood. He captured this overview of one of them with a drone.

Series Description: In Germany, pools are public. They are part of social and cultural life, open for all kind of social classes, a place where people spend a lot of time, especially in childhood and which leaves pleasant memories. Everybody can afford the inexpensive entrance fee. The series was shot by drone, in summer 2018 at a height of only a few meters.

1st Place, Brief

Photo © Rebecca Fertinel, Belgium, 1st Place, Professional competition, Brief, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Thanks to her friend, Tracy, who invited her to the wedding where this image was captured, the photographer got acquainted with the unabashed approach to life of the Congolese community in Belgium along with the Bantu concept “Ubuntu”: that you only really become human when you are connected to everything and everyone. The bridesmaids in this photo are dancing with each other and the wedding guests.

Series Description: In August 2015 the photographer (b. 1991) was invited to a wedding by her friend Tracy. Here, the photographer was introduced to the warm, unabashed approach to life of the Congolese community in Belgium and the Bantu concept “Ubuntu”: that you only really become human when you are connected to everything and everyone.

The concept of Ubuntu seems to intertwine with the desire to belong to a group and maintain a group identity in a changing environment. Showing the ambiance but also the silent moments in between, I tried to capture the feeling of an event that seems like a true celebration, focused on joy and ritual and not on the need for a perfect venue. This project wants to place the viewer in an environment that most have experienced at one time or another at a wedding, party or a wake.

1st Place, Creative

Photo © Marinka Masséus, Netherlands, 1st Place, Professional competition, Creative, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Marginalized groups are getting more vocal, gaining confidence and claiming their rightful place in society. Whether it is the LGBT+ community, people of color, women resisting objectification, and especially Down’s Syndrome, people are speaking up in favor of equal rights. With the advent of technological advances in prenatal screening, the narrative surrounding inclusion of individuals with Down’s Syndrome is especially urgent.

Series Description: This series is part of the Radical Beauty project, an international photography project which aims to give people with Down’s Syndrome their rightful place in visual arts. The young women I worked with shared a strong will to succeed.

To prove themselves. It must be beyond frustrating to be underestimated all the time. With ‘Chosen [not] to be’ I reflect on their reality – the barriers they face, society’s refusal to see their capabilities, the invisibility of their true selves – and translate their experiences visually. In the Netherlands, people with Down’s Syndrome have collected their experiences in a book, called Zwartboek (Black book).

They have offered this book to the government as a catalyst for change. Reading the collection of stories in this book broke my heart. There is so much misinformation. This misinformation leads to misconceptions and widely held preconceived notions which profoundly impact the lives of people with Down’s.

1st Place, Documentary

Photo © Federico Borella, Italy, Photographer of the Year, Professional competition, Documentary, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Taken in May, 2018, this is a portrait of Rasathi, the wife of Selvarasy, a farmer who committed suicide one year ago by hanging himself in his own field. He got into debt with a cooperative society. Five Degrees is the world’s best series of work, selected from the 10 Professional category winners.

Series Description: Could the dramatic increase in Indian farmers who take their own lives be closely connected to climate change and rising temperatures? A study from Berkeley University, found a correlation between climate change and suicide among Indian farmers. It is estimated that 59.300 farmer suicides over the last 30 years are attributable to climate change.

According to experts, temperatures in India could increase by another 5°F by 2050. Without focused government intervention, global warming will lead to more suicides all over India. But what leads farmers to this extreme act? They run into debt through investing in production, and repaying previous loans. Despite these efforts, harvests damaged by adverse weather, and short-sighted water management lead to debt repayment failure.

The impact of climate change affects global wellbeing, going beyond India and threatening mankind as a whole. This project is located in Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India, which is facing the worst drought for 140 years.

1st Place, Landscape

Photo © Yan Wang Preston, United Kingdom, 1st Place, Professional competition, Landscape , 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Part of an eight-year project by Wang to explore the upheaval of natural habitats to create manmade cities in China, this photo depicts a lone quarry. A young sapling stands in the center, sustained by a bag of nutrition liquid and a pile of semi-artificial red soil.

Series Description: The series depicts the otherworldly “ecology recovery” landscape in Haidong Development Zone in Dali, Yunnan Province, China. Here, a small rural area is being urbanised systematically to create “an international leisure town and an ecology model town.”

In doing so, the topsoil of the entire area is replaced by a type of red, semi-artificial soil, which forms the base for introduced, mostly non-indigenous plants, including thousands of mature trees. Meanwhile, green plastic netting is used to cover everything unappealing to the eye, from construction waste to disused quarries.

The town’s objective here has shifted from an “ecological” concern to a cosmetic one of trying to be visually green. The images are part of an eight-year project “Forest” (2010-2017), for which the photographer investigates the politics of recreating forests and “natural” environments in new Chinese cities.

1st Place, Natural World & Wildlife

Photo © Jasper Doest, Netherlands, 1st Place, Professional competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Bob is a flamingo from the Caribbean. His life changed permanently when he accidentally flew into a hotel window and got a concussion. His caretaker, Odette Doest, is a vet who runs a local rehabilitation center for animals. Bob is an ambassador for FDOC, an organization that educates locals about the importance of protecting the island’s wildlife.

Series Description: Bob is a Caribbean flamingo, from the Dutch island of Curaçao. His life took a dramatic turn when he flew into a hotel window, leaving him severely concussed. He was cared for by Odette Doest, a local vet who also runs a wildlife rehabilitation centre and conservation charity – the Fundashon Dier en Onderwijs Cariben (FDOC). Existing disabilities meant Bob couldn’t be released, but instead he became ambassador for FDOC, which educates locals about the importance of protecting the island’s wildlife.

1st Place, Portraiture

Photo © Álvaro Laiz, Spain, 1st Place, Professional competition, Portraiture, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: In Chukchi culture, past, present and future are intimately linked. The Edge series portrays the idea of shared memory and science through population genetics data analysis for every participant.

Series Description: Humans have inhabited North America for at least 16,500 years since they first stepped through the Bering Strait. The Chukchi, a Paleo-Siberian tribe from the Russian side of the Bering Strait may be key to understanding how America was inhabited. In Chukchi culture, past, present and future are intimately linked.

You are not just you: you are your father, your grandfather and your great-grandfather, back to the first Bering Strait hunter. Thanks to population genetics research we are now certain that the first Chukchi hunters left their genetic footprint in all Native American people when they first settled in America. From the Navajo to the Mayans; from Alaska to Tierra de Fuego.

The Edge combines this poetic yet powerful idea of shared memory and science through population genetics data analysis for every participant. A visual journey where past and future combine, exploring a period of our history full of unanswered questions and raising new ones about our understanding of current migratory processes across the entire American continent.

1st Place, Sport

Photo © Alessandro Grassani, Italy, 1st Place Professional competition, Sport , 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

About this photo: Part of the series, Boxing Against Violence, this image depicts 16-year-old Elysèe. She is a part of city boxing club in Goma, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In her words: ‘I’ve been boxing for 2 years, it’s something that gives me strength and courage to defend myself and makes me feel accepted everywhere. In this city there is so much violence that you must always be ready to react. Under the ashes of this society there are latent conflicts, a violence ready to explode at any moment. Thanks to boxing I feel ready to face these dangers.’

Series Description: Goma, North Kivu. This area has sadly been labelled the “rape capital of the world” and one of the worst places in the world for women to live. All these sad records have not stopped women, whose will to go on and overcome the atrocities suffered over the years, is stronger and more alive than ever in the story I’m telling.

Some boxing clubs in Goma are the meeting place for a group of women who have found hope and passion in boxing. Here, women not only learn to throw punches, but to regain strength and the desire to fight against injustice, while dreaming and training to become the next world boxing champion. I created this series of portraits to depict this incredible group of young women living in a deeply patriarchal society, a place where women have only one way to survive: learning to fight.

1st Place, Still Life

Photo © Nicolas Gaspardel & Pauline Baert, France, 1st Place, Professional competition, Still Life, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

Image Description: Two ingredients, combined, make something that looks disgusting but is hypnotic, nonetheless, with its composing and pops of color.

Series Description: With a touch of mockery, BEURKMAGAZINE photographs food every day through metaphors that are as poetic as they are disturbing. For BEURKMAGAZINE, society is “yuck” in a pop culture universe.

Our creative approach is composed of antithesis. Dali amused himself by composing works with irrational associations of forms, images and objects; Maurizio Cattelan, meanwhile, focuses on the subversion of symbols and provocation; we are somewhere in between, with a more general than personal point of view and a desire to give ugliness an artificial beauty.

Food is at the center of our ideas, which are magnified, manipulated and reworked to highlight our message. The pop tone, tight shots and especially the titles are an integral part of our signature.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)