Judges Announced for 2017 Sony World Photography Awards, The World’s Largest Photography Competition

• Competitions, including new categories, open for entries now until January 2017
• 2017 is the 10^th anniversary of world's largest photography competition
• New selection of images available for publication via worldphoto.org/press

(SINGAPORE, 15 September 2016) – The judges for the 10^th anniversary of the world's largest photography competition, the Sony World Photography Awards, are announced today.

Esteemed experts from across the photographic industry will come together to uncover and celebrate the best images shot in 2016 across the awards’ Professional, Open, Youth, National Award, and Student Focus competitions.

The chosen winners will not only receive the latest Sony digital imaging equipment and fantastic cash prizes, but their works will also be exhibited globally. Most importantly, all winners and shortlisted entries will receive world-wide exposure and recognition.

Speaking about his experience winning the 2016 Professional Conceptual category, Julien Mauve said, "With the visibility you get in all types of media and the people you meet, the Sony World Photography Awards is a major award in any photographer's journey and cannot be overlooked. I really enjoyed the experience, which did not stop after the night of the award ceremony but continued throughout the year."

Created by the World Photography Organisation, the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards will include new categories, pushing photographers’ creative boundaries, and invites photographers from all the corners of the world, of all abilities and styles, to enter their best images for free via www.worldphoto.org.

2017 Jury

The judges of the Professional competition are: Zelda Cheatle (Chair) Curator (UK); Allegra Cordero di Montezemolo, Curator and Head of Exhibitions, Centro de la Imagen (Mexico); Russ O'Connell, Picture Editor, The Sunday Times Magazine (UK); Aida Muluneh, Photographer and Cultural Entrepreneur (Ethiopia); Denis Curti, Creative Director, Tre Oci Foundation (Italy) and Francoise Callier, Program Director at Angkor Photo Festival & Workshops (France).

The Open and Youth competitions will be chaired by journalist and photographer Damien Demolder (UK), who will also judge the National Awards competition which runs across 61 countries worldwide. The Student Focus competition will be judged by a selection of judges including Andrea Kurland, Editor-in-Chief, Huck (UK), Dan Rubin, photographer and Creative Director (UK) and Jennifer Shaw, founder and Creative Director, PhotoNOLA (US). 

Zelda Cheatle, Chair of the Professional competition, said, "I will be looking for originality of thought and execution, clarity of vision – a clear concept that translates well into pictures on the wall or on the screen. Simplicity, good craftsmanship and sometimes its wit, or compassion, ingenuity, luck or good judgement – but a good picture always stops you in your tracks."

Prizes

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on 20 April 2017. Prizes include the latest Sony digital imaging equipment, inclusion in the 2017 awards’ book, as well as cash prizes of $25,000 (USD) for the overall Professional winner and $5,000 (USD) for the overall Open winner.

In addition, the annual PR campaign for the awards’ winners and shortlisted photographers secures invaluable international exposure with the world’s most prestigious magazines and newspapers, as well as the most read websites and key photographic trade titles. Online articles about the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards alone resulted in 14 billion opportunities to read across the globe. 

All winning and shortlisted images will be exhibited as part of the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at Somerset House, London from 21 April to 7 May 2017. 

Competition deadlines

·         5 December 2016: Student Focus competition closes

·         5 January 2017: Open, National Award and Youth competitions close

·         10 January 2017: Professional competition closes

The 2016 Sony World Photography Awards received a record-breaking number of submissions: 230,103 images from 186 countries, a 33 per cent increase in entries from 2015. 

An exclusive selection of entries from the 2017 awards is available for publication at www.worldphoto.org/press.

Key dates

• 28 February 2017: Shortlist for Professional, Open, Youth and Student Focus competitions revealed
• 28 March 2017: Open, Youth and National Award winners revealed
• 20 April 2017: Photographer of the Year plus Professional category winners and Open, Youth and Student competition winners revealed at ceremony held in Londo
• 21 April to 7 May 2017: Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London

World's largest photography competition, 2016 Sony World Photography Awards, opens for entries

• New Art and Documentary genres in Professional competition
• Record entries and exhibition visitors for 2015 awards
• British Journal of Photography named media partner for Student Focus competition

(ASIA PACIFIC, 8 June 2015) – The 2016 Sony World Photography Awards, the world’s largest photography competition organised by the World Photography Organisation, are now open for entries.

Now in its ninth year, the awards are an authoritative voice in the photographic world. Each year they attract both emerging talent and established artists, and present the world’s best contemporary photography from the last 12 months. 

Free to enter at www.worldphoto.org, photographers of all abilities are invited to submit their work to any of the awards’ five competitions: Professional, Open, Youth, National Awards and Student Focus. Please see Notes to Editors for competition definitions and categories.

New for 2016, the 14 Professional categories are now divided into two distinct genres - Art and Documentary. The change is to provide a clearer structure in which photographers can be recognised. Both genres also include new category additions, with Art presenting the new Staged and Candid categories and Documentary now including Daily Life and Environment.

Also new this year, British Journal of Photography (BJP), the world's longest-running photography magazine, will partner with the World Photography Organisation and its Student Focus competition. As part of this partnership, the winning Student Focus photographer will receive an online feature showcasing a body of work on the BJP website and will also have the opportunity to take over the magazine’s Instagram feed.

The Sony World Photography Awards offer a range of benefits to those who enter. Firstly, all submitted images are seen by juries made up of leading experts from across the photographic industry. Beyond this, shortlisted and winning photographers are given global exposure and recognition, and have the opportunity to promote and sell their work via the World Photography Organisation. 

The awards’ prizes include: the latest Sony digital imaging equipment, inclusion in the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at Somerset House, London, inclusion in the 2016 awards’ book and $30,000 (USD) for the overall winners. 

In addition to the global Sony World Photography Awards, local countries in the Asia Pacific region such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and many more are also holding a National Award where local winners will be flown to London to attend the Sony World Photography Awards Gala Ceremony. The winning image will also be exhibited at Somerset House, London. The National Awards programme honours and rewards the best single image taken by a local photographer and runs across the world from Argentina to Australia. It is open to photographers of all abilities.

The 2015 Sony World Photography Awards attracted 173,444 entries from 171 countries. The 2015 L’Iris d’Or / Professional Photographer of the Year title was awarded to Getty Images photographer John Moore. The awards’ annual exhibition of the winning and shortlisted works returned to Somerset House, London and saw a record 33,394 visitors last year. 

The Sony World Photography Awards shortlist will be announced on 23 February 2016 and overall winners on 21 April 2016, with an exhibition at Somerset House, London running from 22 April to 8 May 2016.

Winning and shortlisted images from the 2015 awards are available to download at press.worldphoto.org

Further details about the Sony World Photography Awards and the World Photography Organisation can be found at www.worldphoto.org and www.sony-asia/swpa.

Sony World Photography Awards Launch Hunt to Uncover Singapore’s Best Photographer

Sony is excited to announce the hunt for Singapore’s next best amateur photographer with the Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) 2015, one of the world’s most prestigious photography competitions.

As part of SWPA, this prestigious award offers a great opportunity for promising photographers to showcase their work on a global platform and be recognised alongside the world’s most prominent photographers.

All photographers who submit an entry to any of the 10 Open categories will have their names automatically submitted for the Singapore National Award. These categories include: Arts & Culture, Nature & Wildlife, People, and many more to choose from.

The winner of the Singapore National Award will be revealed on 18 March 2015. He or she will be honoured with the latest Sony α7S full frame camera and flown to London to attend the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony. In addition, the winner (along with the 1^st and 2^nd runner-ups) will have their work displayed alongside professional photographers from around the globe as part of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition held in London from 24^th April to 10^th May 2015 and showcased online at http://www.worldphoto.org.

Sony World Photography Awards Launch Hunt to Uncover Singapore’s Best Photographer Last year’s winning image taken by Chin Boon Leng © Chin Boon Leng, 1st Place, Singapore National Award, 2014 Sony World Photography Awards Singapore National Award is open for entries and will close at 23.59 GMT on Monday 5 January 2015. The Sony World Photography Awards and Singapore National Award are free to enter. All images  submitted must have been shot in 2014. Full conditions of entry are available at www.worldphoto.org    Images from the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards are available via the World Photography Organisation (WPO) press centre. Please register at http://press.worldphoto.org/register (SINGAPORE, 28 October 2014) – The Sony World Photography Awards, one of the world’s most prestigious photography competitions, together with Sony Singapore, today launches a competition to discover Singapore’s best photographer. Singapore National Award is open to photographers of all abilities from Singapore. Entries are free via www.worldphoto.org and photographers can enter any of ten categories. The judges will uncover and honour the best single image by a Singaporean national from across these categories. This special award offers an amazing opportunity for budding photographers to have their work seen globally and be recognised alongside the world’s leading photographers. The winner of Singapore National Award will be announced on 18 March 2015. The winning photographer will receive the latest Sony α7S full frame camera and flown to London to attend the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony, while the second and third place winners will receive runner-up prizes. All three photographers will have their work displayed alongside professional photographers from around the globe as part of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition held in London from 24th of April to 10th of May 2015 and showcased online at www.worldphoto.org. More details of the top three prizes can be found below. Each year the Sony World Photography Awards celebrates the very best international contemporary photography. The awards include: 15 Professional categories for serious photographers; 10 Open categories for enthusiasts; the Student Focus competition for higher education photography students aged 18-28 and a Youth Competition for photographers under 20.   The winner of Singapore National Award will be chosen from entries to the Open competition of the 2015 Sony Word Photography Awards taken by Singaporean nationals. Once the participant enters the Open competition, he or she will not be able to enter the Youth or Professional competition. The Open competition includes ten categories: ●     Architecture ●     Arts & Culture ●     Enhanced ●     Low-light ●     Nature & Wildlife ●     Panoramic ●     People ●     Smile ●     Split second ●     Travel The competition will close on 5 January 2015. Entries will firstly be judged by WPO's pre-selection committee and a winner will be decided by a special judging panel including Astrid Merget, Creative Director of the World Photography Organisation.  Scott Gray, Managing Director of the World Photography Organisation comments, "The Sony World Photography Awards are committed to engaging with and supporting talented photographers from around the globe. It is for this reason that we are thrilled to be able to work closely with Sony Singapore to identify the local photographers that are producing great work and pushing their own creative boundaries, so that we can raise their profile across the globe and provide inspiration to other budding Singaporean photographers." Melvin Pang, Head, Marketing Division, Sony Singapore comments, “The National Awards are a great vehicle to recognise talent on a regional basis and it’s extremely interesting to see the different styles emanating from individual countries. We want to support these national talents and provide them with the best cameras and lenses so that they can focus on the creative subjects in front of them.” The top three prizes for the Singapore National Award are: 1st Place ·         Sony α7S camera with Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm F4 ZA OSS ·         A trip to attend Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony in London ·         Winning image will be showcased as part of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London from 24 April to 10 May 2015 ·         Winning image will be showcased on www.worldphoto.org 2nd Place ·         Sony α7 camera with Sonnar T* FE 35mm F2.8 ZA ·         Image will be digitally showcased as part of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London from 24 April to 10 May 2015 ·         Image will be showcased on www.worldphoto.org 3rd Place ·         Sony α6000 with Vario-Tessar T*E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS ·         12 months WPO advanced membership on www.worldphoto.org ·         Image will be digitally showcased as part of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London from 24 April to 10 May 2015 ·         Image will be showcased on www.worldphoto.org About World Photography Organisation (WPO) WPO supports professional, amateur and young photographers, lending a global platform for the photographic industry to communicate, converge and showcase current trends across all genres of photography. Delivering various initiatives to this global community, these programmes involve the photographer in commercial, cultural and educational activities within the many industry sectors, whilst also creating events for the public to participate in. Currently included within the WPO portfolio are: the Sony World Photography Awards; the World Photography Student Focus Competition and Youth on Assignment. In addition the WPO have recently launched Photo Shanghai, Asia-Pacific’s premiere international Art Fair focused on photography and The Magazine, a monthly online publication where photography is explored, debated and discussed.  WPO also has a thriving online presence via its website, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and engages its online audience via regular PhotoTALK discussions. For more information please visit www.worldphoto.org About Sony Electronics (Singapore) & Sony South East Asia Sony Electronics (Singapore) was established on 1st October 1999 with business activities comprising engineering and manufacturing, sales and marketing, and logistics and information systems. As part of Sony Electronics (Singapore), Sony South East Asia is responsible for the marketing and sales of consumer products in Singapore, as well as for business and professional products in Singapore and other countries in the South East Asia region. It also handles export business for consumer products from Singapore to various parts of Asia. Since establishing our presence in Singapore in 1973, we have grown steadily over the years to become a leader in the consumer electronics market. For more information on Sony’s products and services in Singapore, please visithttp://www.sony.com.sg/