2017 Sony World Photography Awards Winners

Thursday April 20th took place in London the 10th ceremony of the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards. Offering the possibility to professional and non-professional photographers to take part, organizers had to chose among 230 000 pictures.

For professional photographers, prizes were given in categories as Architecture, Conceptual, Contemporary Issues, Current Affairs & News, Daily Life, Landscapes, Natural World, Portraiture, Still Life and Sport. Here the prize list :

Belgian photographer Frederik Buyckx is the winner of the “Landscape” category is also the “Photographer of the Year”. He offered a stunning series entitled Whiteout taken in the snowy landscapes of Montenegro and Albania. Monochrome pictures captured when the artist wanted to escape to his daily life in Belgium and decided to explore these landscapes sometimes deserted and meeting the local people.

In architecture, the Chinese photographer Dongni was at the first place. With her abstract architectural series made with a drone and retouching, she breaks the borders of cities by staying in the real world. She suggests the imagination of everyone.

The “Conceptual” category, the Swiss Sabine Cattaneo chose the complicated task to illustrate the end of life and the loneliness that comes with. Hier series entitled “Art. 115”, she evokes the debate and the contemporary subject of the medical assistance that comes with the end of life. Artist chose to show places attaching to her subject, instead of subjects themselves. Viewer is invited to imagine the crisis of conscience, questions or situations that took place.

Winner of the “Contemporary Issues” category Tasneem Alsultan, from Saudi Arabia, chose to document with strength the subject of forced marriage, the quest of love in a society guided by religion. By being inspired by her own life of a young woman married at 17 years old, and spending the last six years of her marriage as a lonely mother before the divorce, she found love with other ways with her family and proves that the happiness can be find in other situations than with a husband.

Russian photographer George Mayer won the “Portraiture” category. He immortalizes as portraits the dark side and light side of everyone.

Italien Alessio Romenzi won the first prize in the “News Comtemporary” category for his picture series documenting the military offensive to free Sirte, called as the Islamic State capital in Libya.

German photographer Sandra Hoyn won the first place for the “Daily Life” category, with a strong subject : the prostitution of young girls and women in Bangladesh. She was in immersion in a brothel of Tangail. Strong pictures that plunge us in a world where women don’t have any liberty.

Colombian Henry Agudelo is the winner of the “Still Life” category with very surprising pictures. He document the fact that lots of bodies of dead people are without identity after wars in Colombia in the past. More that 130 000 disappeared people are in this case. Authorities are conserving distinctive signs as tattoos, scars or prosthesis to hope one day discovering their identity.

One of the most important category. The first place was for the Chinese artist Yuan Peng for his series revealing the daily life of two young twin sisters Liu Bingqing and Liu Yujie who dream to become gymnastic champions. Photographer shows us the suffering of trainings.

The last category is about Nature. The winner is the British photographer Will Burrard-Lucas. He traveled to Kenya and show us a nocturnal series who live in the savanna, under stars. To manage to this result artist used camouflage with a tool called a “Beetlecam” that enable to hide the camera under a sort of turtle carapace with four wheels and a motor. A bluffing result. He also used lamps to have pictures revealing animals in the night and when they are photographed under the rain, the result is very poetical.