2019 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition Berlin, 15 November 2019 – 2 February 2020

Nature photography, portraits and abstract photos – around 130 photos are on display at the Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin.

How to go to the Willy-Brandt-Haus for visiting 2019 Sony World Photography Awards Berlin

• Address: Stresemannstraße 28 10963 Berlin
• Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 12 p.m. – 6 p.m., closed on 29 November, 1 December, 24 – 26 December, 31 December 2019 and 1 January 2020
• Admission Fee: Free admission
• Useful hints: ID, passport or driving licence required

Sony World Photography Awards

The Sony World Photography Award was launched in 2007 and has been presented annually since then. Every year numerous photographers take part in the competition. In 2018, with Candida Höfer, a German photographer was awarded the “Outstanding Contribution to Photography” for the first time. “Photographer of the Year” 2019 is the Italian photographer Federico Borella.

2019 Winners and Shortlist

List of winners from the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards

2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Federico Borella, from Italy, for receiving the 2019 Photographer of the Year award for Five Degrees. The series focuses on male suicide in the farming community of Tamil Nadu, Southern India, which is facing its worst drought in 140 years. Borella is awarded $25,000 (USD).

Five Degrees’ by Federico Borella

Photographer of the Year, Five Degrees’ by Federico Borella

Series description

Could the dramatic increase in Indian farmers who take their own lives be closely connected to climate change and rising temperatures? A study from Berkeley University, found a correlation between climate change and suicide among Indian farmers. It is estimated that 59.300 farmer suicides over the last 30 years are attributable to climate change. According to experts, temperatures in India could increase by another 5°F by 2050. Without focused government intervention, global warming will lead to more suicides all over India. But what leads farmers to this extreme act? They run into debt through investing in production, and repaying previous loans. Despite these efforts, harvests damaged by adverse weather, and short-sighted water management lead to debt repayment failure. The impact of climate change affects global wellbeing, going beyond India and threatening mankind as a whole. This project is located in Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India, which is facing the worst drought for 140 years. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Architecture category

Architecture – 2019 Professional competition

1st Place, ‘Cut Outs – Pools 2018’ by Stephan Zirwes

Series description

In Germany, pools are public. They are part of social and cultural life, open for all kind of social classes, a place where people spend a lot of time, especially in childhood and which leaves pleasant memories. Everybody can afford the inexpensive entrance fee. The series was shot by drone, in summer 2018 at a height of only a few meters. see photos

2nd Place, ‘Paimio Sanatorium’ by Tuomas Uusheimo

Series description

The fate of one of the world’s greatest Functionalist masterpieces, Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium (1933) is at stake. The owner of the property has decided to sell it in the next six months. The Alvar Aalto foundation has launched a an appeal to preserve Alvar and Aino Aalto’s key work intact and protect this example of “healing Modernism.” Paimio Sanatorium is a former tuberculosis sanatorium in south-west Finland. It represents the “modernist” period of Aalto’s career, and followed many of the tenets of Le Corbusier’s pioneering ideas for modernist architecture. The building is widely regarded as one of Aalto’s most important designs and has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status. I want my photographs to show how buildings carry their past with them. While I am fascinated by natural and human-inflicted change that occurs as time passes, I also feel responsible for making a contribution to raise awareness of such unique architecture. see photos

3rd Place, ‘Back to the Future’ by Peter Franck

Series description

The individual works are alluring collages that demand and seduce our visual and art historical memory, create time jumps and explore new combinations of different genres. Everything is composition and photography is a means to arouse associations in the mind of the beholder and to establish connections with our cultural-historical socialization and its emergence. In this setting of the media, the pictures move along the border and the narrow ridge between photography and painting. The shown pictures tell stories. They show cityscapes and nature, seen through the spectacle of our cultural history. There are time leaps and the still-valid view of the architecture and landscape. In these pictures fragility and the task of protecting it are shown. Men are long gone but their stories are still alive. see photos

‘H o m e ‘ by Felicia Simion

Series description

In the traditional Romanian mindset, the house is considered the nucleus of family life, a primordial space which generates and preserves vital energies. As a photographer travelling across Romania, I watched villages and towns being architecturally transformed during recent years, as a consequence of cultural appropriation and as part of the globalization process. I photographed the remains of a so-called ”traditional” world and also a more ”modern” approach to the concept of home, featuring imposing, palace-like houses and apartment complexes built on cities’ outskirts. By isolating them in natural landscapes, as a form of decontextualization, I questioned the meanings and attributes of these habitats, and how they are reflected in the fluidity of architectural styles. Is the house still a primordial site, or have its functions diminished to the merely utilitarian? Has the house been relocated from the center of the world to its periphery? see photos

‘Cabana’ by David Behar

Series description

There is an intrinsic charm in the cabana rental structures of Miami Beach. Each is unique and often paired with the umbrellas it rents out to form a small community of matching hues. The hotel staff will even have matching uniforms to top it off. This series came about in late 2017 and early 2018 after getting tired of shooting Miami’s lifeguard towers. Everyone does it and everyone’s seen them, but the cabanas are often overlooked. There are dozens of them but most people have no idea unless they’re willing to walk for hours. Now this series exists you don’t have to, but you still should. see photos

‘Border Wall Prototypes’ by Daniel Ochoa de Olza

Series description

Border wall prototypes stand in San Diego, near the Mexico US border, as seen from Tijuana, Saturday, December 22, 2018. US President Donald Trump wants to build a border wall along the total length of the continental border, that is 1,954 miles (3,145 km), aimed at preventing illegal crossings from Mexico into the United States. His administration has submitted a figure of $25 billion dollars to Congress. A partial federal shutdown was put in motion because of gridlock in Congress over funding for President Trump’s Mexican border wall. see photos

‘Netropolis’ by Michael Najjar

Series description

The “netropolis” artworks deal with the future urban development of global megacities and the myriad challenges such development brings. Just as Fritz Lang built his 1927 film “”Metropolis”” on the eponymous 1921 photo-collage of the Bauhaus artist Paul Citroen, Najjar’s “”netropolis”” works take Lang’s vision of a futuristic city and place it in the 21st century. The panoramic view of “”netropolis”” changes the reality of how urban space is constructed into a landscape. This landscape itself is changed by the digital fusion of multiple points of view into an abstract multi-layered mesh of relationships. The distant view of the city inverts the close-up perception and connects structures unseen from a closer viewpoint. The “”netropolis”” pictures are metaphors for the compression of space and time, and the high degree of global interconnectivity which is a hallmark of our contemporary world. see photos

‘Space of Light’ by Dimitri Bogachuk

Series description

This project focuses on the space of light. Its main subject is the modernism of Soviet Union architecture. This kind of brutal and utopian architecture, combined with light and color, looks powerful. An important impulse for the project was the depiction of a visual narrative, transformed through the use of light. Some of the found objects are reminiscent of artists’ installations, but they are actually utilitarian. Late at night, the eye sees reflected light; sometimes it is so intense that it creates a feeling of dramatic light. Some of the pictures formally depict the architecture from the front, thereby illustrating the idea of ​​not being able to penetrate the space of light, but only to feel it. It is very important to create a dialog with different artists. This project is influenced by artists including Mark Rothko, James Turrell, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Todd Hido, Edward Hopper and William Eggleston. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Brief category

Brief – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Rebecca Fertinel, from Belgium, for winning the Professional Brief category her series Ubuntu – I Am Because We Are. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place, ‘Ubuntu – I Am Because We Are’ by Rebecca Fertinel

Series description

In August 2015 the photographer (b. 1991) was invited to a wedding by her friend Tracy. Here, the photographer was introduced to the warm, unabashed approach to life of the Congolese community in Belgium and the Bantu concept “Ubuntu”: that you only really become human when you are connected to everything and everyone. The concept of Ubuntu seems to intertwine with the desire to belong to a group and maintain a group identity in a changing environment. Showing the ambiance but also the silent moments in between, I tried to capture the feeling of an event that seems like a true celebration, focused on joy and ritual and not on the need for a perfect venue. This project wants to place the viewer in an environment that most have experienced at one time or another at a wedding, party or a wake. see photos

2nd Place, ‘Höllental und Himmelreich’ by Christina Stohn

Series description

“Höllental und Himmelreich (Valley of Death and Kingdom of Heaven) Even in these times of continuous technological development, centuries-old customs are still cherished in the Black Forest, a region in South West Germany where I grew up. In many villages, there appears to be a deep-rooted consciousness of tradition across generations. Seasonal festivals and religious processions are maintained and show no sign of being forgotten; they have also become commercialised and well established in the tourist calendar. This project poses questions concerning the significance of customs within our plural society.” see photos

3rd Place, ‘In The Garden of England ‘ by Edward Thompson

Series description

This body of work is part of a culmination of eighteen years of predominantly photographing the South East of England. There are a number of themes at work in this photo-series covering nostalgia, class and the beautiful uncanny of everyday English life. As a photographer, the work represents the continued pursuit of my visual style and approach to photography. It has taken a long time to get here and now, going through the wider edits of this work, I can appreciate that I always saw the world in this way. see photos

‘Youth of Belfast’ by Toby Binder

Series description

In Northern Ireland, Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists live in homogeneous neighborhoods that are still divided by walls. While they stick to their own symbols of identity and tradition, they wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, have the same haircuts and often the same worries such as violence, unemployment, social discrimination and lack of prospects. The photo essay depicts the ubiquity of problems afflicting Belfast’s youth, on both sides of the Peace Wall. I have been documenting the daily life of teenagers in British working-class communities for more than a decade. After the Brexit referendum I focussed on Belfast. There is serious concern that Brexit will threaten the 1998 Peace Agreement. The images were photographed in six different neighborhoods of Belfast, both Catholic and Protestant. The majority were taken in 2017 and 2018, a few before the referendum. see photos

‘Every day is Another Chance’ by Kacey Jeffers

Series description

“Every day is another chance” is an ongoing series about the links between personal mythologies within my family. In September, I returned to Nevis (a former British colony; population 12,000) after three years in New York City. Feral monkeys, donkeys, goats and sheep still charmingly regulate traffic; inertia and frustration linger in the warm breeze, mingling with the unfulfilled promises of sun, sea, and sand. My new life in the US was a seismic cultural shift: festering racial tensions thrust on me a notion of blackness that felt like indoctrination. Meanwhile, Americans scrambled to reassess the potency – the relevancy – of the American dream. Initially, this project stemmed from a desire to just keep shooting. Eventually, through familiar entrances, exits, and the unpacking of unresolved feelings, I am finding beauty and healing in once vulnerable places. This enables me to be both an actor in, and a witness to this story; assimilating socio-economic-cultural circumstances into my creative process. see photos

‘Drummies’ by Alice Mann

Series description

These images depict the unique and aspirational subculture surrounding all-female teams of drum majorettes in South Africa, affectionately known as “drummies”, based in some of the country’s most marginalised communities. For the girls and young women involved, being a “drummie” is a privilege and an achievement, indicative of success on and off the field. Being part of a team offers them a sense of belonging and increases their sense of self-worth, vital in communities where opportunities for young women are severely limited. A female-only sport, it’s a safe space where they are encouraged to excel; their distinctive uniforms are a visual marker of success and emancipation from their surroundings. This is part of my ongoing work exploring notions of femininity and empowerment in modern society and I hope these images communicate the pride and confidence these girls achieve through identifying as “drummies” in a context where they face many social challenges. see photos

‘Dormitory Belongings’ by Zhipeng Zhu

Series description

The dormitory is the living space of College students. The objects in the dormitory embody personal hobbies, habits and so on. I exaggerate the articles in the dormitory to show the personality of these people. I call these individualized objects dormitory furniture, which are the most characteristic items of these people in the dormitory. Through this, I can see that Some personal possessions can show their interesting features. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Creative category

Creative – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Marinka Masséus, from the Netherlands, for winning the Professional Creative category with her series Chosen [not] to be. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place, ‘Chosen [not] to be’ by Marinka Masséus

Series description

This series is part of the Radical Beauty project, an international photography project which aims to give people with Down’s Syndrome their rightful place in visual arts. The young women I worked with shared a strong will to succeed. To prove themselves. It must be beyond frustrating to be underestimated all the time. With ‘Chosen [not] to be’ I reflect on their reality – the barriers they face, society’s refusal to see their capabilities, the invisibility of their true selves – and translate their experiences visually. In the Netherlands, people with Down’s Syndrome have collected their experiences in a book, called Zwartboek (Black book). They have offered this book to the government as a catalyst for change. Reading the collection of stories in this book broke my heart. There is so much misinformation. This misinformation leads to misconceptions and widely held preconceived notions which profoundly impact the lives of people with Down’s. see photos

2nd Place, ‘The Invasive Species of the Built Environment’ by Leah Schretenthaler

Series description

This series takes place in my home of Hawaii. I use traditional film and silver gelatin to shoot and print images of controversial building and infrastructure projects in Hawaii. I then attempt to remove the buildings from the image by laser etching them. The laser leaves a scar on the image, much like the permanent damage from infrastructure which cannot be removed. see photos

3rd Place, ‘The Normals’ by Pol Kurucz

Series description

By definition most people are “normal.” Some want to be different and follow the norms of a specific social or cultural tribe; they are normal too. And there are those who would laugh at nonsensical categorizations, who don’t believe in or live by conventions, who create their own reality and live it naturally. They are the subject of the photographer’s last photo series: genuine eccentrics, weirdos and lunatics who, in the eyes of the photographer, are the new normals. Shooting for this last series took place entirely in the Kolor Studio in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, where all the sets and accessories were built by the Kolor Art Collective. Most models, performers, and actors featured in the photos come from the city’s humanist microcosm and themselves belong to the redefined group of the eccentrics. see photos

‘Capsulated Series (courtesy of Galerie Number 8)’ by Djeneba Aduayom

Series description

This is an ongoing project/series called Capsulated, an interpretation of an imaginary inner world expressing numerous emotions and states of minds brought about by rejection, solitude, and stereotypes. To be inside a bubble, the world is a bubble. I am encapsulated in my own bubble. Within myself, connected and disconnected all at once. Express, repress. Rejection makes me fragile and strong all at once. See me beyond the surface, see beyond my differences. I am an introvert in a world of extroverts. Movements of expression and self-reflection are the way forward. To touch someone’s heart is to touch the world, one drop at a time, so that misconceptions melt away. See me for who I am; don’t judge me for what you see. I am inside a bubble. see photos

‘Sheep Dogs of the North Pole’ by Allan Dransfield

Series description

My life is a collage. The nature of my work has enabled me to travel the world, in turn igniting a creative wanderlust within. Where I wake and fall asleep blends into a kaleidoscope of faces, sounds and experiences. Yet amongst the chaos, I find calm: zoom out far enough and patterns begin to appear. Deconstruction. Reconstruction. Synergy between old and new, micro and macro. A surreal harmony and poetic entanglement ensues; synchronicity. Although each image has its own story to tell, all have undergone the same process of construction, three layers of life stitched together into a single new document. A still life, depicting how cultures, memories and phenomena drift and blur between one another as life echoes into the future. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Discovery category

Discovery – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, from Italy, for winning the Professional Discovery category with their series Güle Güle. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place, ‘Güle Güle’ by Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni

Series description

Güle Güle (goodbye in Turkish) is a personal project focused on the city of Istanbul. To document the profound changes happening in the city and within Turkish society, we got in close contact with the realities that are the driving forces and the results of this change. Photographs derive from multiple relationships, penetrating the complexity of the city and its contrasting microcosms. Gentrification, the marginalization of the poorer classes, increasing discrimination against homosexuality, the massive migration of Syrian refugees and the Kurdish community issue are just some of the hidden realities behind the subjects portrayed. While still following a documentary approach, we decided to leave the informative and didactic content of the images in the background to foster their visual immediacy and an open-ended narrative. see photos

2nd Place, ‘JiangNan’ by BOYUAN ZHANG

see photos

3rd Place, ‘The Two Parallels – 10’ by Karina Bikbulatova

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Berlin Documentary category

Documentary – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Federico Borella, from Italy, for winning the Professional Documentary category with his series Five Degrees. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

Photographer of the Year, Five Degrees’ by Federico Borella

Series description

Could the dramatic increase in Indian farmers who take their own lives be closely connected to climate change and rising temperatures? A study from Berkeley University, found a correlation between climate change and suicide among Indian farmers. It is estimated that 59.300 farmer suicides over the last 30 years are attributable to climate change. According to experts, temperatures in India could increase by another 5°F by 2050. Without focused government intervention, global warming will lead to more suicides all over India. But what leads farmers to this extreme act? They run into debt through investing in production, and repaying previous loans. Despite these efforts, harvests damaged by adverse weather, and short-sighted water management lead to debt repayment failure. The impact of climate change affects global wellbeing, going beyond India and threatening mankind as a whole. This project is located in Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India, which is facing the worst drought for 140 years. see photos

2nd Place, ‘Akashinga – The Brave Ones’ by Brent Stirton

Series description

Akashinga, meaning “the brave ones” in Zimbabwe’s Shona dialect, is an all-female, community-driven conservation model. It empowers severely disadvantaged women to restore and manage a network of wilderness areas as an alternative to trophy hunting. In late 2017, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation created the Akashinga conservation rangers, using an all-female team to manage an entire nature reserve in Zimbabwe. These women come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, many the victims of rape, domestic abuse and exploitation. Through this program they have re-empowered themselves and through their many successes they have become an example to women all across Africa. The members of Akashinga have a community-driven, interpersonal focus, working with, rather than against, the local population for the long-term benefit of their own communities and nature. see photos

3rd Place, ‘Palestinian Right of Return Protests’ by Mustafa Hassona

Series description

Since May 30, 2018, Palestinian protesters have protested weekly on the border with Israel in order to demand their right to return. The protests are still continuing along the Gaza Strip area bordering Israel, where around 233 Palestinian protesters have been killed and 21,000 injured by Israeli snipers. see photos

‘Outlawing the Face Veil in Denmark ‘ by Andrew Kelly

Series description

On May 31, 2018, the Danish government voted to ban the wearing of face veils in public. Under the law, police will be able to instruct women to remove their veils or order them to leave public areas. Fines will range from 1,000 to 10,000 crowns ($160 – $1600).. The ban would prevent Muslim women from wearing the niqab or burqa in public. Some politicians asserted that the law promoted public safety and secular and democratic values. But many people felt it was an easy way for the government to appease a growing nationalist voter base. Numerous social media campaigns in Denmark have demanded stricter laws on non-western immigrants, a reflection of rising populism in Europe. Denmark has struggled with integrating non-western immigrants, resulting in what have been labelled “parallel societies” within the country. An estimated 150-200 women wear the niqab daily in Denmark (pop 5.5 million) according to a University of Copenhagen study. see photos

‘A Harrowing Journey, Then Chaos at the Border’ by Kyung-Hoon Kim

Series description

Thousands of Central American migrants spent weeks travelling north through Mexico in the hopes of entering the United States. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump vowed to stop the migrants, sending troops to reinforce the border. Frustrated and exhausted following weeks of uncertainty, many migrants became desperate after getting stuck in squalid camps in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and attempted to cross the border fence illegally, risking almost certain detention. see photos

‘An Elegy for the Death of Hamun’ by Hashem Shakeri

Series description

Sistan and Baluchestan province in South East Iran shares borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Once a forest, and with a history of over 5000 years, it used to be a great source of crops. Now, rapid climate change is turning this vast region into an infertile desert. Lake Hamun is connected to Helmand/Hirmand River which flows from Afghanistan. The Afghan government has built dams in upstream Helmand, preventing water from reaching Iran. Today there is nothing left of the lake except cracked, barren land. People made their living by fishing, farming and animal husbandry; their lives were dependent on Lake Hamun. With Hamun dying, its great biodiversity has virtually vanished. The province has suffered from drought, famine, and unemployment for years. This has led to depopulation. People either move south (to the Cha’bahar free port) or to Golestan in North East Iran; but there is no paradise awaiting them. Even after two decades, the differences between the Balouch and Golestani people are still considerably high. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Berlin Landscape category

Landscape – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Yan Wang Preston, from the UK, for winning the Professional Landscape category with her series To the South of the Colourful Clouds. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place, ‘To the South of the Colourful Clouds’ by Yan Wang Preston

Series description

The series depicts the otherworldly “ecology recovery” landscape in Haidong Development Zone in Dali, Yunnan Province, China. Here, a small rural area is being urbanised systematically to create “an international leisure town and an ecology model town.” In doing so, the topsoil of the entire area is replaced by a type of red, semi-artificial soil, which forms the base for introduced, mostly non-indigenous plants, including thousands of mature trees. Meanwhile, green plastic netting is used to cover everything unappealing to the eye, from construction waste to disused quarries. The town’s objective here has shifted from an “ecological” concern to a cosmetic one of trying to be visually green. The images are part of an eight-year project “Forest” (2010-2017), for which the photographer investigates the politics of recreating forests and “natural” environments in new Chinese cities. see photos

2nd Place, ‘Polytunnel’ by Marco Kesseler

Series description

This project looks under the surface and examines the hidden landscape within the spaces in which our food is produced. Looking at cyclical changes and the relationship between chaos and control in the natural environment. In the polytunnel, the seasons are stretched and softened within a polythene skin, creating its own cosmos. In these unseen spaces, nature vies for territory within a man-made colony. see photos

3rd Place, ‘Hierotopia’ by Kieran Dodds

Series description

Ethiopia has lost 95% of its native forests due to human activity in the last century. What remains surrounds circular Tewahedo Orthodox churches; these ancient canopies are protected as a tenet of faith. The country’s population will double in the next 30 years, further pressurising these natural treasures. Thousands of forest fragments exist across Northern Ethiopia – green islands of biodiversity in an expanding sea of agriculture – but a mere fraction are viable. Incremental erosion from grazing and subsistence agriculture is destructive: thinned forest edges kill the canopy from the outside in. To their guardians, each forest is a miniature Garden of Eden, essential to the building’s dignity. One priest described the trees as “the clothes of the church”. The forest’s religious significance is equalled by its ecological function: these sacred oases raise water tables, lower temperatures, block destructive winds and are home to yield-boosting pollinators. These genetic repositories are vital for human survival in Ethiopia. see photos

‘Under The Night Sky’ by Imma Barrera

Series description

The submitted images are part of a current project to raise awareness about the importance of nature conservation efforts and in particular, protecting the night sky from light pollution. Preserving the night environment helps support human health and heritage and preserve wildlife habitats. Night photography offers a chance to capture and document scenes that few people ever see nowadays due to artificial light and air glow pollution and can be truly inspiring. This selection includes Milky Way captures and star trails (the movement of the stars due to the earth’s rotation, captured during a period of at least one hour but usually longer) taken at three beautiful and very different locations: Joshua Tree National Park in California, one of the four Gold Tier International Dark Sky Parks in the US; the New Jersey Atlantic Shore and the Catskills Mountains in New York. see photos

‘Lithium Mining’ by Catherine Hyland

Series description

Giant pools filled with sky-blue brine, streams of viscous, custard-yellow fluid cross a meringue-white landscape of dessicated minerals, mountains recede into the haze, the horizon is never-ending, the emptiness all encompassing. The Atacama is famously the world’s driest place. Its few inhabitants have historically scraped a living breeding llamas and goats or knitting hats. It’s remote and isolated but also the world’s largest source of lithium, the element that fuels modern daily life. A smartphone battery contains three grams of lithium; an electric car, 20 kilograms. Embedded in these images are man’s attempts to tame the land. This idea of taming the landscape, of economically productive order coming out of this unpopulated wilderness suits a particular narrative. It also has precedence in mapping landscapes. From Timothy O’Sullivan’s King’s Survey pictures of the American West to nineteenth century maps detailing the division of Africa between European colonial powers, the idea of emptiness and absence is used to justify expansionism, colonialism and control. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Berlin Natural World & Wildlife category

Natural World & Wildlife – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Jasper Doest, from the Netherlands, for winning the Professional Natural World & Wildlife category with his series Meet Bob. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place, ‘Meet Bob’ by Jasper Doest

Series description

Bob is a Caribbean flamingo, from the Dutch island of Curaçao. His life took a dramatic turn when he flew into a hotel window, leaving him severely concussed. He was cared for by Odette Doest, a local vet who also runs a wildlife rehabilitation centre and conservation charity – the Fundashon Dier en Onderwijs Cariben (FDOC). Existing disabilities meant Bob couldn’t be released, but instead he became ambassador for FDOC, which educates locals about the importance of protecting the island’s wildlife. see photos

2nd Place, ‘Ocean Ambassadors’ by Christian Vizl

Series description

I have devoted my life to exploring and contemplating the amazing beauty of the ocean and it has been an incredible journey that has brought me a deep feeling of connection with nature, but sadly during my lifetime I have witness the ever-increasing devastation that we humans are creating on this planet. Today the world’s oceans are in grave danger. Overfishing, pollution, plastics, radiation, climate change, acidification and other human pressures threaten the fundamental nature of the ocean and its animals are being pushed to near extinction. The time to act and reverse our negative impact is now, before it’s too late and we risk losing everything. For this series I chose a few emblematic animals that inhabit the world’s oceans, because I believe they have the power to promote empathy and initiate change. see photos

3rd Place, ‘Two Headed Eagle’ by Maela Ohana

Series description

Two Headed Eagle is a collection of botanical portraits and landscape photographs shot during the short moments of dusk and dawn. During the golden hour, a sense of mystery envelops the landscape, creating uncanny interactions between flora and their natural surroundings. Most of these images were shot in February 2018, when I spent a month hiking in the Sierra Madre mountains of Oaxaca, and along the Pacific Coast. These are some of the plants and landscapes I encountered on the way. Shot with a Nikon digital camera with flash. Post-production with Photoshop and Lightroom. see photos

‘A Symbiotic Relationship’ by Liang Fu

Series description

A cleaning station is like a mutual symbiotic community underwater. Every individual living in the community benefits from the others. The grouper and moray eel have their dead skin, bacteria, and parasites cleaned by the shrimps and wrasse, while at the same time the cleaner species receive nutrients and protection from the fishes. I have spent years studying the symbiotic behaviour between shrimps and different fish underwater. The photos I took are from different locations, showing a lively mutual symbiosis relationship. see photos

‘Saving Orangutans’ by Alain Schroeder

Series description

Indonesia’s Sumatran orangutan is under severe threat from the incessant and ongoing depletion and fragmentation of the rainforest. As palm oil and rubber plantations, logging, road construction, mining, hunting and other development continue to proliferate, orangutans are being forced out of their natural rainforest habitat. Organizations such as the Orangutan Information Center and their immediate response team, the Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit, rescue orangutans in difficulty (lost, injured, captive…) while the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme cares for, rehabilitates and resocializes orangutans, aiming to reintroduce them into the wild and create new self-sustaining, genetically viable populations in protected forests. It seems obvious that we share 97% of our genetic heritage with orangutans when you observe their human-like behavior. Today, with just over 14,000 specimens left, the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo Abelii) plus 800 recently discovered Tapanuli orangutans (Pongo tapanuliensis), are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Berlin Portraiture category

Portraiture – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Álvaro Laiz, from Spain, for winning the Professional Portraiture category with his series The Edge. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place, ‘The Edge’ by Álvaro Laiz

Series description

Humans have inhabited North America for at least 16,500 years since they first stepped through the Bering Strait. The Chukchi, a Paleo-Siberian tribe from the Russian side of the Bering Strait may be key to understanding how America was inhabited. In Chukchi culture, past, present and future are intimately linked. You are not just you: you are your father, your grandfather and your great-grandfather, back to the first Bering Strait hunter. Thanks to population genetics research we are now certain that the first Chukchi hunters left their genetic footprint in all Native American people when they first settled in America. From the Navajo to the Mayans; from Alaska to Tierra de Fuego. The Edge combines this poetic yet powerful idea of shared memory and science through population genetics data analysis for every participant. A visual journey where past and future combine, exploring a period of our history full of unanswered questions and raising new ones about our understanding of current migratory processes across the entire American continent. see photos

2nd Place, ‘Henkō’ by Massimo Giovannini

Series description

Henkō – a Japanese word composed of kanjis meaning “change” and “variable/unusual light” – conveys the idea of a shifting light which transforms our perception of the objects it illuminates. The work is not intended to trick the viewer, only to introduce doubt; to make them question preconceived ideas on gender and the presumed veracity of even the most candid photographic image. Apart from retouches to soften or accentuate the Adam’s apple, the images were not Photoshopped in post-production. Only lighting, make up and the subject’s facial expressions convey the symbolic gender reassignment. The choice of format – traditional photographic portraits in diptychs – and the seemingly simple image conceal the complexity of the subject matter, forcing the viewer to question the medium and their ability to see through it. If lighting and a skin-deep makeover can make viewers question their understanding of gender, perhaps the border between masculine and feminine is hazier than we are led to believe? see photos

3rd Place, ‘At the End of the Day’ by Laetitia Vançon

Series description

This series is a portrait of a territory through the prism of its younger generation. The Outer Hebrides are a string of islands (220km long with 27,000 inhabitants), located in the far North of Scotland, on the edge of what used to be Europe before Brexit. What is the daily life of these young people, in a place where the population is ageing and the economy is declining, where jobs and studies but also their choice of partners are limited? How do the young people develop a sense of belonging strong enough to decide to stay and keep the islands afloat? After two years following this project, overall, the young people show a common ability to bounce back. A kind of happy fatalism. It is as if they are tied by elastic: most of them want to go elsewhere, but they are ceaselessly brought back to their islands. By attachment but also, very often, by fear of the unknown. see photos

‘Pères ‘ by Marta Moreiras

Series description

Pères is born as a reflection on fatherhood, to promote gender equality and social development in Africa. We live in a world permeated by stereotypes, of which we are often victims. Pères questions these clichés that we carry as a burden, in a literal way and also symbolically, to create a pathway towards an open dialogue on a crucial and significant matter. Pères aims to inspire social change and strives to support women in their battle for gender equality. It is a symbolic act that implies an invitation to reflect on gender roles. These portraits make the role of the father visible as well as promoting a more balanced family model, where fathers are engaged in the education and care of their children at the same level as mothers. It was shot in medium format, in Dakar (February 2018) and was exhibited at Dak’Art, the African Contemporary Art Biennale. see photos

‘Plan Américain’ by Scarlett Coten

Series description

Plan Américain is part of a larger study on the complexities of masculinity and is devoted to a new territory: the United States. Through intimate portraits, this series gives a unique overview of today’s America – the America of my encounters with strangers. Reversing the typical societal roles, this work offers a female viewpoint on men, a transgressive photographic act, exploring the necessity of alternative perspectives and the power of the female gaze in the art. I choose men on instinct and invite them to pose, photographing those who agree in a confidential location selected to match each individual encounter. By focusing on beauty and the vulnerabilities of a gender constrained by stereotypical expectations of masculinity, my work strives to remove any cliché or stigma of sensitivity, recontextualizing gendered identity for today’s world. see photos

‘only because of him’ by Sadegh Zabbah

Series description

Every year in the days of martyrdom of Shia Muslim’s eighth Imam, Muslims from all over Iran even from other Muslim countries like Pakistan, Iraq and etc. Coming Mashhad on their feet to visit the holy shrine in Mashhad city, as pilgrims. These portraits taken from pilgrims who have walked in route to Mashhad (Razavi Khorasan) in winter. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Berlin Sport category

Sport – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Alessandro Grassani, from Italy, for winning the Professional Sport category with the series ‘Boxing Against Violence: The Female Boxers Of Goma.’. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place ‘Boxing Against Violence: The Female Boxers Of Goma.’ by Alessandro Grassani

Series description

Goma, North Kivu. This area has sadly been labelled the “rape capital of the world” and one of the worst places in the world for women to live. All these sad records have not stopped women, whose will to go on and overcome the atrocities suffered over the years, is stronger and more alive than ever in the story I’m telling. Some boxing clubs in Goma are the meeting place for a group of women who have found hope and passion in boxing. Here, women not only learn to throw punches, but to regain strength and the desire to fight against injustice, while dreaming and training to become the next world boxing champion. I created this series of portraits to depict this incredible group of young women living in a deeply patriarchal society, a place where women have only one way to survive: learning to fight. see photos

2nd Place ‘Beneath the Surface of Competitive Freediving ‘ by Kohei Ueno

Series description

Freediving is a sport where you dive as deep as you can, for as long as you can, on a single breath of air. Athletes push themselves far beyond what is considered normal, some diving to depths of over 100 meters, and holding their breath for over ten minutes. It may seem like a crazy extreme sport, reserved only for suicidal adrenaline junkies, but when you look closely at a freediver beneath the surface, you may find that it is quite the opposite. Freedivers dive in a meditative state, lowering their heart rate and relaxing their body to consume the least amount of oxygen. Calmness, stillness, peace and silence, the words often used to describe this sport, are what I try to portray in the photos. They were taken at the AAS Freediving Depth Championships held in Amed, Bali, Indonesia. see photos

3rd Place, ‘The Big Score’ by Thomas Nielsen

Series description

Football was invented by the British in 1863, when the Football Association was formed. For the first time, rules for this simple ball game that requires a minimum of equipment were sketched out. Football lives in the British soul. Every week they cheer and support their teams, but not just in the Premier League. Millions of British football fans also shout for their teams in the lower divisions. In West London club Brentford FC – playing in the second best “Championship” league – they are used to not always winning, but the club’s form curve is improving this year and some even believe in the miracle of making it to the Premier League. see photos

‘The Only Team in Town’ by Chris Donovan

Series description

It’s Wednesday night, and Tasha Otieno sits in her boyfriend’s home in a densely populated neighbourhood in Nairobi. She has just returned from hockey practice. The room smells of tea and ugali (cornmeal porridge) and the only light comes from a TV in the living room. The game is on – again. It’s the 2010 Olympic women’s hockey gold-medal match, streaming on YouTube. Canada versus the United States. The 23-year-old is glued to the screen, screaming at the referees as though she hadn’t already watched the game a dozen times before. Tasha is not alone in Kenya when it comes to a love of ice hockey. She is one of five women who play on the Nairobi Ice Lions, East Africa’s sole ice hockey team made up of around five women and 25 men. see photos

‘Bonneville’ by Sigurd Fandango

Series description

Ever since the car was invented, people have gathered at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, US, to set land speed records. “The Flats” are the remains of an ancient lake, a dreamlike, vast expanse of salt, where 70-year-old grandfathers zip by at speeds of 450 miles per hour. “Speed Week” takes place in August each year and welcomes amateurs and professional drivers, as long as they can present a car that meets the specifications of The Southern California Timing Association. see photos

‘Boxing in Marrakech’ by Filippo Gobbato

Series description

I went to Marrakech to visit a friend, but I got lost in the medina and was robbed by some boys. I was too scared to fight back. I stayed in my friend’s house without going out for days. Then I decided to get out. I met a neighbourhood boy and told him what happened. He invited me to follow him. We ran for quite some time and arrived in a dark place where some boys were boxing. “If you trust me, I’ll make you a strong man and you won’t be scared anymore,” said the master. I practised with them, sweating and swearing. On my last day, I asked to take some photos. I wanted to illustrate this weird, funny group of boxers. I found something grotesque but also something sweet in them. They look very ramshackle but very determined, as if they’re screaming: “We are the boxers of Marrakech and nobody can stop us!” see photos

‘Inner Atlas’ by Trent Mitchell

Series description

Regarded as an art form, the sport of bodysurfing is one of the most primitive forms of wave riding. Historically celebrated for performances above the water surface, I felt intrigued to explore the rider’s interaction with the power of the sea from an immersive perspective below. What does it feel like to be there, moving at the perfect speed, intimately connecting with the dynamics of the sea? To ride the formless edge between fear and joy in a single breath? I discovered a physical and emotive space where man, movement and energy fuse during a journey of self-discovery and inner harmony. see photos

‘Taekwondo North Korea Style’ by Alain Schroeder

Series description

Although the origins of martial arts are shrouded in mystery, since time immemorial men have used their hands and feet for self-protection. Influenced by a combination of historical events in Korea and Japanese traditions, the modern incarnation of Korea’s national martial art Taekwondo (“way of kick and fist”) was created in 1955 by General Choi Hong-hi. Born in what is now North Korea, his idea was to develop a specific martial art to demonstrate the spirit and wisdom of the Korean nation to the outside world. Taekwondo is extremely popular in North Korea. It is taught in every school and is part of the daily sports and health routine of all DPRK citizens. After 50 years of existence, the art of kicks has 60 million practitioners in more than 120 countries. Taekwondo became a medal sport at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. see photos

‘A Diana that has them Arrows.’ by Jaime Otoniel Perez Munevar

Series description

Archery is, above all, a sport of precision, so in principle, its practice requires a great capacity for concentration, but also a correct physical preparation. Medellín hosted the National Archery Championship to choose the members of the Colombia team for International events. I did this work because I found the different gestures of the participants very curious. see photos

2019 Sony World Photography Awards Berlin Still Life category

Still Life – 2019 Professional competition

Congratulations to Nicolas Gaspardel & Pauline Baert, from France, for winning the Professional Still Life category with the series Yuck. Below are also the series awarded second and third place, along with the shortlist.

1st Place, ‘Yuck’ by Nicolas Gaspardel & Pauline Baert

Series description

With a touch of mockery, BEURKMAGAZINE photographs food every day through metaphors that are as poetic as they are disturbing. For BEURKMAGAZINE, society is “yuck” in a pop culture universe. Our creative approach is composed of antithesis. Dali amused himself by composing works with irrational associations of forms, images and objects; Maurizio Cattelan, meanwhile, focuses on the subversion of symbols and provocation; we are somewhere in between, with a more general than personal point of view and a desire to give ugliness an artificial beauty. Food is at the center of our ideas, which are magnified, manipulated and reworked to highlight our message. The pop tone, tight shots and especially the titles are an integral part of our signature. see photos

2nd Place, ‘Watching A Balloon Rise’ by Yiming Zhang

Series description

This project draws its inspiration from the mathematical study of chaotic systems, in which the degree of freedom is so high that tiny changes in how a system is set up would have ramifications, albeit deterministic, that are profound and unpredictable, given the limits of human computational power and our ability to acquire enough information to characterise the system in question accurately . This theoretical limit to predictability and knowledge of causality echoes and intensifies a similar concern that underlies the daily practice of making decisions: framed in this light, trivial and subconscious acts of decision making could impact one’s life in ways beyond one’s knowledge. This heightened realization of causality and fear of the ultimate futility of attempts at gaining control in this causal process present themselves as a bizarre visual fiction. see photos

3rd Place, ‘The Struggle for Freedom’ by Cletus nelson Nwadike

Series description

The civil war between Nigeria and Biafra was paid for with our blood, our future, and our imagination. More than 2 million souls died in vain. It was the most expensive war in the history of mankind. 51 years have passed and we are still trying to pay off our debts. Photography came and gave me back my imagination and liberation. When the light became my mentor, I changed perspective and I wish for the shutter speed to slow down and let more light into my country and my dreams. see photos

‘Memento mori’ by Peter M. Madsen

Series description

This series is inspired by Dutch 17th-century still-life painters. One of the concepts of the series was to photograph the roadkill animals I found and arrange them laid out ceremonially as if on their deathbeds. As a sort of “Remember you must die, so don’t forget to live.” see photos

‘Daydream’ by Kui Su

Series description

My work attempts to show the possibilities of photography in a new form. Based on defamiliarization and recognition of things, this group of works called “Daydream” focuses on small objects that are neglected in life and the creative potential of ordinary things. In the process of shooting, the object is placed in different backgrounds, and by blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, the work tries to liberate commonplace things from the specific context and inertia of daily life. At the same time, the work aims to explore the expressive possibilities of usual things and find a new photographic language. I believe that the inertia of life gradually erodes people’s perception, making it difficult to discover and innovate. At the same time, by letting ” things” appear on the scene, showing their artistic value, I want to reflect on people’s crazy shopping behaviour in the context of consumerism and the excess, waste and forgetting of “things” associated with it. see photos

‘Small Treasures’ by Stefanie Dollhopf

Series description

These are photos of Japanese handicrafts that I bought in Japan. Each item is something very special both in color and expression. I have combined the craft work with pieces of wood, paper and food to create still lives. The whole is complemented by colored paper in the background. For me, the “Small Treasures” series is a wonderful reminder of a trip to Japan. I worked on the series with my sister in the studio and took the pictures with a digital camera. see photos