With just one month until the 10th edition closes, the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards today releases new entries from its Open competition, and asks its judges to share their advice to photographers worldwide entering the Professional, Open and Youth competitions plus the National Awards.
The Sony World Photography Awards, created by the World Photography Organisation, is the world’s largest photography competition. The 2016 competition received a record-breaking 230,103 images from 186 countries. The Photographer of the Year title was won by Iranian photojournalist Asghar Khamseh, and the Open Photographer of the Year title was awarded to Kei Nomiyama from Japan.
All entries to the Sony World Photography Awards are free at www.worldphoto.org. The deadlines for each competition are:
- January 5, 2017 – Open competition – rewarding the best single images across 10 categories
- January 5, 2017 – Youth competition – the best single image responding to a set brief by any photographer aged 12-19
- January 5, 2017 – National Awards – uncovering the best single image from over 60 countries entered into the Open competition
- January 10, 2017 Professional competition – 10 categories judged upon a body of work
All winning and shortlisted images will also be exhibited as part of the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London from April 21 – May 7, 2017. The exhibition will also feature a special curation of work by the awards’ 2017 Outstanding Contribution to Photography recipient.
Top tips from the judges
The awards’ judging panels are made up of esteemed industry experts who below offer advice to those entering any of the 2017 competitions:
Russ O’Connell, Picture Editor, The Sunday Times Magazine (UK)
2017 Professional competition judge
- Be conscious of your contemporaries and competition, try and choose something that really stands out, but is relevant in today’s saturated market
- Think commercially – what may be special to you personally, can be lost or misunderstood to the viewer
- Be mindful of cliché images
Françoise Callier, Program Director, Angkor Photo Festival & Workshops (France)
2017 Professional competition judge
- Technically good photos is a must
- Don’t copy winners from previous competitions
- Good storytelling is important to me. I like being able to look at the photographs and understand what they are telling me without having to read the text description about them. I want the photographs to speak for themselves.
Damien Demolder, Photographer and Journalist (UK)
2017 Open and Youth competitions Chair of Judges
- Try not to shoot images that have been done a thousand times before and which only copy and emulate others
- Your life and your experience are different to everyone else’s so use your individuality
