How to Create a Winning Student Series: Advice from Competition Judge, Menno Liauw

What makes a photographic series stand out? How do you turn an initial idea into a body of work, and where do you begin when approaching a theme as open as Journeys?

Through his work with FUTURES Photography, curator Menno Liauw encounters emerging talent from across Europe. This year, he joins the jury for the Sony World Photography Awards Student competition, and shares his advice for students developing their entries for 2027.

Start with what interests you

The theme Journeys offers plenty of room for interpretation. Rather than taking the theme at face value, Liauw encourages students to find an approach that genuinely interests them.

"Make something you truly want to make, something you would make even without a competition or a brief"

For Liauw, the strongest projects go beyond simply documenting an experience. They offer a perspective that gives the viewer something to connect with, question or discover.

The best work doesn’t just tell us about the artist’s journey. It sends the viewer on one of their own.

Think about the series as a whole

A compelling series is about more than a collection of strong individual images. It is the relationship between those images that creates a larger story or investigation.

"A series needs to establish a relationship between its images… That doesn’t mean every image needs to look the same, but there has to be an underlying logic," Liauw explains.

His advice is to experiment with your edit before settling on a final selection:

Change the selection, the sequence, the number of images, and see what each version does. A series is never finished in one form.

Consider how your work will be seen

When preparing a submission, it is worth thinking about how your series will translate to a screen. A project developed for a photobook or exhibition may need a different sequence or edit when viewed digitally.

"Presentation is always site-specific, and that includes submitting to an award. A jury looking at your work on a screen is a context too," says Liauw.

This isn't about changing your work to suit a jury. It is about making thoughtful decisions about how your images work together and how best to communicate your idea.

Stay open to possibilities

Whether your starting point is a personal story, a long-term investigation or an unexpected interpretation of Journeys, give yourself room to explore it.

"Don’t feel you need to take theme too literally. If you do photograph an actual journey, show me something I haven’t seen before, or show it in a way I’ve never looked at it."

Ready to develop your own project? The Sony World Photography Awards Student competition invites photography students to submit a series of images responding to this year's theme, Journeys.

Visit our Student competition page to find out more, including how to enter