A jaguar drilling the camera with its eyes as it attacks a crocodile, a village floating on Lake Titicaca as wildfire approaches, amazing portraits, architectural wonders and gorgeous landscapes are all among the 10 category winners and shortlisted single photos in the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards open competition, unveiled by the World Photography Organisation.
The free-to-enter Sony competition recognizing single images from across the globe garnered more than 395,000 entries from 220-plus countries and territories in 2023.
Each category winner snares digital imaging equipment from Sony and goes on to compete for the Open Photographer of the Year title and a $5,000 prize that will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on April 18.
Selected winning and shortlisted images will be shown at the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at London’s Somerset House from April 19 to May 6 before hitting the road to other locations.
Now in its 17th year, Sony’s photo awards are a global voice for photography for both established and emerging artists.
The categories in the Open Competition include portraiture, travel, natural world and wildlife, lifestyle, landscape, architecture, creative, motion, object and street photography. All the Sony World Photography Awards winners and shortlisted photos can be seen here.
This is a particularly rare scene of a sperm whale calf nursing from its mother in the Indian Ocean. The young calf pushes its lower jaw into the nipple cavity and the mother squirts milk into the baby’s mouth underwater. As young whales cannot breathe and nurse at the same time, these feeding events are typically quite short.
A great blue heron swallows its early morning catch at the base of a small spillway that flows into wetlands in Madison, Alabama.
A close-up portrait of a bumblebee’s right side details its eye and antenna with startling clarity—challenging any horror movie’s monster for effect.
A mother elephant greets her daughter. “I called the little one Sonia, or Sony,” said photographer Jesus Frias.
There are two characteristics that clearly distinguish bats from other mammals: They alone can fly, and they rest hanging upside down.
Unlike birds, bats cannot take flight from the ground because their wings are not strong enough. So they hang from trees to facilitate their flight.
Travel and Lifestyle
On Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia, a tranquil floating village stands in stark contrast to the approaching wildfire on land nearby, a dramatic testament to nature’s dual disposition.
The Allée des Baobabs in Madagascar is probably one of the best places on the planet for viewing the incredible baobab trees. “Using a drone, I was able to compose the striking outlines of the baobabs along the road and in the very last moments of the beautiful sunset,” said John Seager.
Captured at the famous “S-bend” in Xiapu, China, bamboo sticks used for drying sea kelp and a fishing boat join together to create a harmonious composition reminiscent of a hand-drawn ink painting.
Twende Ziwani is Swahili for “let’s go to the lake” and the title of this studio photograph inspired by fashion photography, depicting a model striking a pose.
The title also refers to Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and the source of the Nile River.
A capybara visits a house in San Antonio in Peru’s Amazon rainforest.
Portraiture
‘Zenande, Sinawe, Zinathi and Buhle at Sea Point Pavilion, Cape Town’ depicts a group of teens on a day out at the swimming pool. The photographer, Michelle Sank, considers the ways in which the city has changed since the end of apartheid, reflecting how cultural and social diversity is now celebrated.
“This image is part of my ongoing series ‘Ballade,’ a poetic homage to my birthplace,” she explains. “My strongest memories are of Sea Point Promenade and the Pavilion swimming pool when, due to apartheid, they were only for the privileged white population. Returning in 2023, I was drawn to these spaces where little seems to have changed in terms of structure and recreation, but they now celebrate cultural and social diversity.”
The legendary Sir David Attenborough sits on a stool in the grounds where Charles Darwin wrote Origin of the Species.
“Forgotten by the Renaissance” is a photographic series aimed at capturing the essence of individuals who, historically, were rarely seen as subjects in the Renaissance paintings that adorn museum walls.
These images feature individuals from diverse backgrounds underrepresented in classical portraiture, providing a fresh perspective on their significance in the tapestry of art and culture. It seeks to challenge traditional narratives by creating a more inclusive representation of history.
Actor Sir Ian McKellen prepares to play Mother Goose in a pantomime at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End.
Motion
A rider passes through a muddy part of the course at the Norwegian National Championships in Hafjell Bike Park, Norway.
Taken during the British Fencing Senior Championship 2023 in north London, Andrew Moss “used a slow shutter speed to enhance the sense of movement as the fencers lunged and parried on the piste.”
Street photography
You simply couldn’t ask for a better juxtaposition between a woman and graffiti of a gorilla.
Everyone loves Fleet Week in New York City. Every night of the week, ladies come into the city to dance the night away with the visiting sailors, but the sailors must leave before midnight to get back to their ships, as their “Cinderella liberty” comes to an end. This lady had a wonderful time and bids goodnight to her visiting hero.
“Walking past this pub, I looked through the window and saw this little dog waiting for his owner,” said Sonia de Wit. “I went inside and took this photograph.”
Landscapes
As moonrise burns across the horizon, lights dance above the Old Man of Storr in Scotland. This iconic rock formation was illuminated with powerful lights attached to drones, which cut through the darkness to reveal the icy landscape.
Taken during a blizzard, the image was carefully executed just before the moonlight became too bright.
A lone camel thorn tree is dwarfed by a massive sand dune in Sossusvlei, Namibia.
“It was a very cold morning when I set up to photograph the iconic Torres del Paine mountains in southern Chile, with frozen fog filling the valleys and shrouding the mountain,” Charles Janson recalled. “A small herd of llamas entered the scene and I decided to include them. They were, after all, a part of the landscape as well.
Architecture
“Falling Out of Time” depicts a lighthouse bathed in the soft evening light of dusk, its sleek, geometric design contrasting with the coastal landscape and a solitary figure.
Many of Cairo’s buildings are unfinished because their owners have to pay higher taxes when they are complete.
The image was taken from the Tai Mo Shan, the highest point in Hong Kong. The sprawling metropolis was covered in a layer of fog, creating surreal silhouettes of the skyscrapers, which looked like toys.
Creative
A macro photograph of crystals of amino acids B-alanine, L-glutamine and glycine, showing the remarkable colors and textures contained within these complex structures.
“The sea level markers I saw on a trip to Death Valley, California, reminded me of the waterfowl that once lived in the area,” said Bin Yang. “Concerned about climate change and the increasing drought in the western United States, I placed photographs of waterfowl in a surreal desert setting in the hope that it would serve as a reminder that humans need to do the right thing when it comes to climate change.”
“This picture is part of my Unattainable Beauty series, which explores the artificial creation of beauty,” said Natalie Strohmaier. “The ‘flower model’ was hand-assembled using needles and wires, and photographed in the studio.”
“With this composition I wanted to highlight the beauty of shape and color possessed by organic objects that we don’t necessarily notice in everyday life,” said Aleksandra Garbarczyk. “I took this picture in my studio in Salzburg.”
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
