The grand prize results are in for the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards. Some striking and thought-provoking images are among the winners in 13 categories, plus the grand prize winner. In addition, another organization, the National Audubon Society, announced its best of 2015 nature photography awards.
Organized by the World Photography Organisation and sponsored by Sony, the Honorary Jury began its review after call for entries closed in early January. The program’s competitions consisted of Professional, Open, Youth, and Student categories. The Professional competition was then further broken into architecture, arts and culture, campaign, conceptual, contemporary issues, current affairs, landscape, lifestyle, people, portraiture, sport, still life, and travel.
The grand prize, L’iris d’or, went to John Moore, a staff photographer and special correspondent for Getty Images. Moore submitted a series titled “Ebola Crisis Overwhelms Liberian Capital.” It showed gripping images of Liberians, in stark detail, as the Ebola crisis gripped the country. As part of the prize, Moore won the “Photographer of the Year” title and $25,000.
Amateur photographers competed for the Open Photographer prize, which went to German photographer Armin Appel, who submitted “Schoolyard,” for which he received a $5,000 prize. Youth photographer Yong Lin Tan from Malaysia won the grand prize in that category; the 19-year-old student competed against more than 6,600 entries from around the world, but won for his shot of the night sky from a Malaysian alley way. The Student award went to Russia’s Svetlana Blagodareva. These three grand prize winners were chosen from a shortlist of winners announced on March 31, 2015. (The rest of professional winners are listed here.)
Prints of the award-winning images can be ordered through World Photography Organization website.
In other news, the National Audubon Society recently announced the winners for its 2015 Audubon Photography Awards featuring nature photography focused on birds and conservation. The organization was so struck by the entries that it published the top 100 entries in addition to the winners.
