- The Sony World Photography Awards announces the finalists and shortlists of the 2025 Professional competition
- Photographic projects were recognised for technical mastery and an original approach to narrative
- Photographer of the Year to be announced on 16 April at a special gala ceremony in London
- 2025 exhibition opens at Somerset House from 17 April – 5 May 2025
The Sony World Photography Awards reveals today the 30 finalists and shortlisted photographers in the 2025 Professional competition. Now in its 18th year, the Professional competition rewards outstanding series of work both for their compelling approach to narrative and for their photographic execution.
Across this year’s competitions, over 419,000 images from over 200 countries and territories were submitted to the Awards.
The 10 category winners will be chosen from the 30 finalists and announced at a special ceremony in London on 16 April. The recipient of the prestigious Photographer of the Year title is chosen from the category winners and announced on the same night. In addition to receiving a $25,000 (USD) cash prize and a range of Sony digital imaging equipment, the Photographer of the Year is offered the opportunity to show their work in a solo presentation at next year’s Sony World Photography Awards London exhibition.
A new prize element is additionally introduced for this year’s Professional competition; the 10 category winners are invited to London for a day of tailored sessions with leading industry figures. From a range of commercial and institutional backgrounds, these experts offer the photographers specialised guidance on ways to continue to widen their platform and to find new opportunities to showcase their work.
Underscoring the creativity and dynamism of Japan’s contemporary photography scene, the 2025 Awards also marks the first edition of the Japan Professional Award, which recognises a winner and shortlist of striking series by Japanese photographers from the Professional competition.
A selection of works by finalists and shortlisted photographers is first on view as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2025 exhibition at Somerset House from 17 April – 5 May 2025, and will thereafter travel to other locations.
Commenting on behalf of the jury, Monica Allende, Chair of the Jury, says: ‘We were so impressed by the strength and variety of the works submitted to the Sony World Photography Awards 2025. It is always a real challenge to select the shortlists and finalists, and as a jury we found the wider entries no less vital and inspiring.
On behalf of the jury, I would like to congratulate the shortlist and finalists of the Professional competition. Across their projects, these photographers show great originality and clarity of vision, bringing prescient stories to the fore. From narratives of community-building to explorations of collective memory, to empowering stories of people challenging conventions, these works offer a diversity of perspectives on our moment in history. I would like to extend my thanks to all of the jury for their careful deliberations and choices this year.’
The three finalist projects per category of the Sony World Photography Awards 2025 Professional competition are:
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Twilight in San Ignacio by Andre Tezza (Brazil) explores the resilience of the vernacular architecture of Belize, looking at homes built to withstand the challenging tropical climate. LIGHT/MASS by Owen Davies (United Kingdom) explores seemingly ‘alien’ urban landscapes in the United States, focusing on monumental buildings with atypical geometries. Ulana Switucha’s (Canada) Tokyo Toilet Project documents an initiative involving the construction of modern public restrooms designed by leading architects.
CREATIVE
In I Am Here for You, Irina Shkoda (Ukraine) reflects on dynamics of hospitality, both given and received, drawing on her own experience as a refugee. In Reclaiming the Truth, Julio Etchart & Holly Birtles (United Kingdom) look closely at institutional artefact collections and curation through a postcolonial lens. Elsewhere, Rhiannon Adam (United Kingdom) tells a personal story of the dearMoon mission which she was set to participate in, responding to the ways in which its cancellation disrupted her life and her work.
DOCUMENTARY PROJECTS
Alex Bex’s (France) series Memories of Dust explores the visual vocabulary of the cowboy, to consider new ways of presenting this archetype of masculinity. Florence Goupil’s (Peru) series The Whisper of Maize examines the pivotal role of maize in Latin American traditions, not only as a staple food but as a medium of cultural and religious expression. Toby Binder (Germany) documents the deep divides shaping social life in Belfast, Northern Ireland, through the lives of young people born after the Good Friday agreement.
ENVIRONMENT
Cristóbal Olivares (Chile) charts the impact of light pollution on the astronomical teams observing the night sky of the Atacama Desert. Maria Portaluppi’s (Ecuador) project looks at conservation in Guayanquil; through tender portraits of the animals in their care, she highlights the work done by the Sacha Rescue Foundation.
In Alquimia Textil, Nicolás Garrido Huguet (Peru) collaborates with researcher and fashion designer María Lucía Muñoz to portray traditional textile dyeing techniques practiced by artisans of Pumaqwasin in Chinchero, Cusco, with light bleeds on the photographs visually and texturally reflective of the dye seeping into cloth.
LANDSCAPE
In Apocalypse, Lalo de Almeida (Brazil) maps out the devastation caused by drought, deforestation and wildfires across Brazil in 2024, its hottest year on record. Mischa Lluch’s (Spain) series Fading evokes the loneliness and disconnection beneath the surface of contemporary American suburbia, creating images of an uncanny stillness.
Seido Kino (Japan) carefully combines archival imagery with contemporary Japanese landscapes, rolling back the surface of the contemporary image to reveal how towns and villages have evolved with the passage of time, and the ways that today’s challenges can be connected to the past.
PERSPECTIVES
Giovanni Capriotti (Italy) explores Canadian history through the lens of its First Nations communities, working with the guidance of elders and people living with intergenerational trauma. Laura Pannack (United Kingdom) captures the daily dangers and obstacles that the children face on their journey home from school in the gang-governed Cape Flats area of Cape Town.
Ashes of the Arabian’s Pearl by Valentin Valette (France) observes the societal changes resulting from economic growth in the Sultanate of Oman, considering the manual labourers and the entrepreneurs pushing the economy forward.
PORTRAITURE
Gui Christ’s (Brazil) project M’kumba illustrates the resilience of Afro-Brazilian communities in the face of local religious intolerance, celebrating the ways in which their spirituality and religious identity is expressed. Raúl Belinchón (Spain) photographs the young volunteers whose efforts helped to clean the houses, clear the streets, and deliver life-saving supplies during the flooding in the Valencia region in autumn 2024.
Tom Franks’s (United Kingdom) series The Second offers an insight into the complex relationship between gun owners and their firearms in the United States, using their personal testimonies to represent this cultural phenomenon.
SPORT
Antonio López Díaz (Spain) tells the story of aspiring gymnasts from Chad, whose determination earned them scholarships, and eventually led them to compete for a spot in the 2024 Olympic Games. Chantal Pinzi’s (Italy) Shred the Patriarchy celebrates the women in India who have subverted gender stereotypes and broken barriers by practicing skateboarding.
Michael Dunn (Bolivia) looks at a typical Monday for two women passionate about golf; every week they leave their usual work roles to play, wearing the traditional clothing of the Bolivian chola.
STILL LIFE
Alessandro Gandolfi (Italy) uses still life photographs to illustrate the fragile ecosystem of the Wadden Sea, an intertidal zone of the North Sea, showing its unique importance in maintaining ecosustainability in Europe.
K M Asad (Bangladesh) depicts the murals installed by Sheikh Hasina during her rule, documenting the ways in which these symbols of political power have been erased and dismantled following her exile in 2024. Peter Franck’s (Germany) Still Waiting is suggestive of the liminal spaces between events – the thresholds ‘where time seems to stretch.’
WILDLIFE & NATURE
Kevin Shi (United States) highlights the ways in which polar bears and humans are living in ever-close proximity in the town of Churchill, Canada. Pascal Beaudenon’s (France) painterly images show a herd of musk ox, tracing their behaviours as they group together closely to face the harsh winter. Zed Nelson’s (United Kingdom) Anthropocene Illusion is a long-term project documenting the ways in which humans mediate their relationship with the natural world, creating artificial experiences of nature in the face of a rapidly changing climate and depleting biodiversity.
JAPAN PROFESSIONAL AWARD
The new Japan Professional Award recognises a winner and shortlist of Japanese photographers who entered outstanding series into the Professional competition. The inaugural winner of the Japan Professional Award is Noriko Hayashi for her project Life at the Crossroads: Midwives in Afghanistan, documenting the arduous work and the resilience of Afghan midwives operating under the Taliban regime.
In addition to her work being shown at the London exhibition and in the annual book, Noriko Hayashi is awarded Sony digital imaging equipment and the opportunity to present her work at the Sony Imaging Gallery Ginza in Tokyo later this year. The shortlisted photographers are Miku Yokoyama (Architecture & Design), Seido Kino (Landscape), Shinya Masuda (Still Life) and Shunta Kimura (Environment).
