Sony World Photography Awards

Competitions

Find the right competition for you – all are free to enter

The Sony World Photography Awards 2020 are now closed for entries! The 2021 Professional, Open, Student and Youth competitions open on 1 June, 2020. Want to keep up-to-date with the 2021 competitions? Register your interest below!

The Sony World Photography Awards has four competitions:

Professional (Opens 1 June 2020)- Recognizing outstanding bodies of work
Open (Opens 1 June 2020) - Rewarding exceptional standalone images
Youth (Opens 1 June 2020) - Celebrating the best single images by emerging photographers aged between 12-19 years-old
Student (Opens 1 June 2020) - Providing a platform for photography students worldwide

Announcement Dates

2020 Sony World Photography Awards timeline

All you need to know about when we’ll be releasing the shortlists, category and overall winners for the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards

21 January, 2020
Outstanding Contribution to Photography recipient revealed

11 February, 2020
Professional competition: shortlist and finalists
Professional Sony Grant recipients’ projects

27 February, 2020
Open competition: shortlist and category winners revealed

10 March, 2020
Youth competition: shortlist
Student competition shortlist revealed
Student Grant recipients’ projects

6 April, 2020
ZEISS Photography Award winner and shortlist revealed

16 April, 2020
Photographer of the Year, Open Photographer of the Year, Student Photographer of the Year and Youth Photographer of the Year announced at the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony in London

17 April to 4 May, 2020
Sony World Photography Awards exhibition opening

Exposure & Benefits

Why you should enter

The Awards are your chance to have your work recognized globally and has the power to change the careers of those who win and are shortlisted.

The democratic approach of the Awards means all artists working across photography have equal opportunity to win and be seen by leading industry experts.

Every competition is free to enter and categories are designed to be open to all photographic genres and abilities.

Successful photographers can receive:

Inclusion in global and country-specific media and marketing campaigns
Exhibition at Somerset House, London
Potential to be included in international exhibitions
Inclusion in the Sony World Photography Awards book
Opportunity to apply for the Sony Grant to further personal photographic projects

The World Photography Organisation has a thriving online presence and creates dedicated campaigns to give unprecedented worldwide exposure to the Awards' successful photographers across its social media platforms, mailers and website.

About

The world’s leading awards for artists working in contemporary photography

Produced by the World Photography Organisation, the internationally acclaimed Sony World Photography Awards are one of the most important fixtures in the global photographic calendar.

The Awards are a global voice for photography and provide a vital insight into contemporary photography today. For both established and emerging artists, the Awards offer world-class opportunities for exposure of their work.

Now in its 13th year, the Awards consist of four competitions: Professional (for a body of work), Open (for a single image), Student (for academic institutions) and Youth (for 12-19 year-olds).

Always free to enter, there is a competition and a category for everyone – from Architecture, Documentary, Landscape, Portraiture, Sport, Street Photography, Wildlife, Travel, Culture and more.

All images are judged by industry experts from across the world, who come together each year in London to reward standout works. A total prize fund of $60,000 (USD) plus the latest Sony digital imaging equipment is shared between the winning photographers.

With the power to kickstart and shape careers, the Awards provide those working in photography a global stage to showcase their work. Previous winning and shortlisted photographers have gone on to be represented by renowned galleries and institutions worldwide, as well as their work being featured in major international publications.

In addition, the Awards recognize the world’s most influential artists working in the medium through the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award; previous recipients include Mary Ellen Mark, Elliott Erwitt, Martin Parr, William Eggleston, Candida Höfer and, most recently, Nadav Kander.

Sony’s commitment

The objective of the Sony World Photography Awards is to establish a platform for the continuous development of photographic culture. The Awards do this by recognizing great contributions to photography in the past through the Outstanding Contribution to Photography prize as well as finding new talents of the future and providing them with the opportunity to be promoted and exhibited around the world. This is achieved through the Awards program and by integrating a Student and Youth competitions as well as Student and Professional Sony Grants. The latter further prove Sony’s commitment to photographic culture by extending their relationship with individual winners beyond the Awards to develop the individuals’ careers. The Grants of $7,000 (USD) and $3,500 (USD) each is awarded to four professional and three student recipients respectively so they can continue developing their projects.