We’ve gathered some of the stunning category winners of the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards, and they range from impressive feats of nature to timely covid-era disaster imagery.
We’re struck at just how powerful photography remains, telling so much in one still frame. Check out some of the open competition winners, and check back in April for their Photographer of the year.
Category winner, open competition, object. Memento, depicting a tailor’s mannequin in an empty room. For Zih, the stillness of the scene evokes a feeling of solitude and stirs up memories of lockdown. (Photo by Kata Zih/Sony World Photography Awards)
Category winner, open competition, street photography. Disinfection, a cinematic image documenting an employee of the health affairs unit of Ankara municipality in protective gear walking along the train platform while spraying it with disinfectant. (Photo by F. Dilek Uyar/Sony World Photography Awards)
Shortlist, open competition, street photography. Night in Pandemic Time, taken at the Pondok Ranggon Cemetery, Jakarta, late one afternoon. The funeral officers were having a break, watching videos on their smartphones and chatting with their families. (Photo by Ares Jonekson Saragi/Sony World Photography Awards)
Shortlist, open competition, natural world and wildlife. Hello World – an ant looking through an autumn leaf in a forest near the photographer’s home. “I like the tones of this autumn leaf. So warm. It was hard to take this image because of the fast-moving ant, but with a little help of a flashlight I was able to freeze the motion”. (Photo by Alex Pansier/Sony World Photography Awards)
Category winner, open competition, natural world and wildlife. Little Kiss, an amusing picture of a hare looking out into the field with its tongue sticking out. (Photo by Cristo Pihlamäe/Sony World Photography Awards)
Shortlist, open competition, motion. Light Athletics. The first element was the black-and-white shot, which makes the lines of the tracks stand out and suppresses any distractions. The final image was edited in Photoshop. (Photo by Zdeněk Vošický/Sony World Photography Awards)
Category winner, open competition, landscape. Electric Storm on Lavender, a dramatic photograph capturing the moment lightning strikes a flowering field of lavender with a solitary tree at its centre, set against a dusky evening sky. Taken in the province of Guadalajara, Spain. (Photo by Juan Lopez Ruiz/Sony World Photography Awards)
Category winner, open competition, motion. Girl Power, a black-and-white photograph recording the moment when a woman dives off a cliff on the island of Lokrum near Dubrovnik, Croatia, while her friends stand and watch. (Photo by Marijo Maduna/Sony World Photography Awards)
Shortlist, Open competition, Landscape. The Neowise Comet pass overhead at Stonehenge in the United Kingdom. (Photo by James Rushforth/Sony World Photography Awards)
Category winner, open competition, travel. Drying Fish, a photograph of a lone woman surrounded by hundreds of trays of drying fish in the Long Hai fish market in Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Vietnam. Taken from above, the pattern of the fish in trays resembles a large piece of fabric with the woman seemingly weaving it all together. (Photo by Khanh Phan/Sony World Photography Awards)
Category winner, open competition, creative. African Victorian, a portrait of a young black woman dressed in Victorian dress and holding traditional Shona cooking utensils. The image probes at stereotypical contextualising of the black female body and offers an alternative visual language through which a multifaceted African identity is presented. (Photo by Tamary Kudita/Sony World Photography Awards)