Sony World Photo Awards 2018 opens

NOW IN its 11th year, the Sony World Photography Awards is once again calling for submissions as the 2018 competition opens. This year sees the introduction of two challenging new categories in the Professional competition – Creative and Discovery – and an important new opportunity for award winners to secure a grant to fund future photographic projects.

Created by the World Photography Organisation, the Sony World Photography Awards is the world’s largest photography competition. The awards celebrate the very best that photography has to offer.

Commenting on its impact, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards winner Frederik Buyckx says: ‘Being named Photographer of the Year has given me more exposure than I could ever have imagined. It has also encouraged me to keep working on my personal projects.’

The new Creative and Discovery categories are designed to discover a new style of photography that would not normally be seen in the competition. The judges want to recognise photographers working at the cutting edge of the medium, and will specifically look to reward originality and experimentation.

There is also a new grant programme for those participating in the Professional and Student Focus competition. This follows on from a successful pilot with three 2016 Sony World Photography Awards Professional category winners: Amélie Labourdette, Maroesjka Lavigne (whose images are seen above and left) and Nikola Linares.

Selected winners of the 2018 Professional categories will receive a $7,000 grant to enable them to pursue personal photographic projects. In addition, shortlisted photographers from the Student Focus competition will each be given $3,500 to work together on a new photographic commission.

With a $25,000 reward for the grand prize winner and $5,000 for the winner of the Open category – on top of Sony imaging equipment, which all the winners of the Professional, Open, Youth and Student Focus categories will receive – the competition is open to anyone. For details visit www.worldphoto.org.

Sony grant recipient, Maroesjka Lavigne, explored the pristine lands of Namibia

An image from Lavigne’s series Out of the Blue for which she won the Sony grant