Winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2020

Today Sony revealed the overall winners for this year’s 2020 Sony World Photography Awards. Created by the World Photography Organization and sponsored by Sony, it is considered as one of the world’s largest and prestigious photography competitions.

For this year award, more than 345,000 images from 203 countries and territories were submitted across the four main competitions: Professional, Open, Youth and Student.

More than 135,000 images were entered only into the Professional competition this year – the highest entries to date!

Below you will enjoy winners from all four competitions, plus the Alpha Female Award and Latin America Professional Award winners – both new awards for 2020. Be sure to watch as well their acceptance videos.

All Winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2020

Photographer of the Year — Pablo Albarenga, Uruguay.

Seeds of Resistance is a body of work that pairs photographs of landscapes and territories in danger from mining and agribusinesses with portraits of the activists fighting to conserve them. Pablo explores the bond between the defenders and their lands – a sacred area in which hundreds of generations of their ancestors rest. In the photographs, the main characters in the stories are seen from above, as though they are laying down their lives for their territory. Pablo wins $25,000 and is the inaugural winner of the Latin America Professional Award.

Full series here
Pablo’s website here

Alpha Female Award winner — Lily Dawson-Punshon, United Kingdom

Lily’s portrait references historical paintings, particularly Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring, but she has brought in an 21st-century twist. Lily explains how her photograph aims to explore the relationship between the past and the present, and how both contrast and support each other.

Youth Photographer of the Year — Hsien-Pang Hsieh, Taiwan

Hurry, features a street performer who is seemingly walking in a hurry but is in fact standing still. Inspired by his experience as a newly arrived student in Germany, Hsien-Pang sees the image as his comment on the intensive pace of life and a reminder others to slow down

Roger’s Instagram feed here.

Student Photographer of the Year — Ioanna Sakellaraki, Royal College of Art

Aeiforia presents night-time photographs of solar panels, wind turbines and battery farms used across the small island of Tilos in Greece which is the first in the Mediterranean to run almost entirely on renewable energy. Ioanna wins €30,000 of Sony digital imaging kit for her institution.

See Ioanna’s full series here. Ioanna’s portfolio on her website here.

Watch all their video interviews at www.worldphoto.org – And the Category Winners here.

ARCHITECTURE WINNER

Sandra Herber (Canada) for her series Ice Fishing Huts, Lake Winnipeg

Full Series Here
Sandra’s website here

CREATIVE WINNER

Pablo Albarenga (Uruguay) for his series Seeds of Resistance

Full series here
Pablo’s website here

DISCOVERY WINNER

Maria Kokunova (Russian Federation) for her series The Cave.

See her full series here
Maria’s website here

DOCUMENTARY WINNER

Chung Ming Ko (Hong Kong SAR) for his series Wounds of Hong Kong.

See his full series here
Chung’s portfolio on his Facebook page here

ENVIRONMENT WINNER

Robin Hinsch (Germany) for his series Wahala.

See his full series here
See Robin’s website here

LANDSCAPE WINNER

Ronny Behnert (Germany) for his series Torii.

See his full series here
See Ronny’s website here

NATURAL WORLD & WILDLIFE WINNER

Brent Stirton (South Africa) for his series Pangolins in Crisis.

© Brent Stirton, South Africa, 1st Place, Professional competition, Natural World & Wildlife, 2020 Sony World Photography Awards
See his full series here

See Brent’s website here