2026 Sony World Photography Awards Professional Finalists
The World Photography Organization has announced the professional finalists and shortlists for the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards. While the Open competition (for which the 2026 category winners were announced last month) celebrates standout single images, the Professional awards focus on cohesive series that tell a story over multiple frames. The professional finalists offer a counterpoint to the Open winners, revealing how photographers are using image sequences to deepen storytelling beyond what a single photo can achieve.
This year's announcement highlights long-form projects across 10 categories, from Documentary Projects and Portraiture to Landscape and Wildlife & Nature. For the 2026 edition, 30 photographers have been named finalists, and more than 65 others have been shortlisted for series that range from intimate personal narratives to wide-ranging explorations of social and environmental change. The judges evaluated each body of work on its narrative strength, visual consistency and conceptual ambition, rather than on a single standout frame.
Selected images will be exhibited at Somerset House in London from April 17 to May 4, alongside hundreds of images from across all divisions of the World Photography Awards. Category winners and the overall Photographer of the Year, who receives a substantial cash prize and gear from Sony, the sponsor of the competition, will be announced at a ceremony in London on April 16. Work from the Photographer of the Year will also be shown in a solo presentation at next year's exhibition.
We've included a small section of the finalist images below, but you can see all of the finalists and shortlisted images at the contest website.
Architecture & Design
Photographer Name: André Tezza
Image Name: Loja e Mercado Marielen
Year: 2026
Image Description: Named after one of the owner's daughters, this store in Campo Largo is a family-run business integrated into the same building where the family lives, merging domestic space and commercial architecture into a single, everyday structure.
Series Name: Everyday Structures
Series Description: This ongoing project documents small neighbourhood grocery stores on the outskirts of Curitiba, in southern Brazil. These modest structures form an architecture of resistance that persists even as large retail chains reshape the city. Often family-run and linked to domestic spaces, the stores merge work, memory and dwelling into a single building. While the city centre undergoes gentrification, the periphery remains culturally dense and visually vibrant. This series reflects a belief that architectural beauty exists in ordinary, overlooked places.
Copyright: © André Tezza, Brazil, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Creative
Photographer Name: Pablo Ramos
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Image Description: There is no record of the first disappeared woman in Mexico, but official figures state that 23 per cent of cases correspond to women.
Series Name: The Black Album
Series Description: With more than 130,000 individuals currently reported missing in Mexico, and a new disappearance occurring approximately every 40 minutes, The Black Album transforms archival imagery into a haunting collective portrait of absence, loss, and unresolved grief. Rather than documenting disappearance directly, this photographic essay reinterprets the past to question the future. Through an intervention in a photographic archive, the project constructs a symbolic 'album' of Mexico's disappeared — an unsettling reflection of a country living through a prolonged dark era in which absence has become routine and invisibility systemic.
Copyright: © Pablo Ramos, Mexico, Finalist, Professional Competition, Creative, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Creative
Photographer Name: Ben Brooks
Image Name: Barson
Year: 2026
Image Description: Carson, California.
Series Name: The Palm, On Piru
Series Description: The Palm, On Piru is a photographic series exploring the spiritual connections and collective identities of rappers from South Los Angeles with Pirus/Bloods gang affiliations. The work focuses on the people and places central to the origins of West Coast hip-hop's G-funk music genre, and California's parallel gang culture, examining the interplay of their environment, community and artistic expression. The series was shot on colour infrared film, with its distinctive red and pink tones creating links between the environment and the artists, members, and families that form the Red side of the cultural divide, and the backbone of West Coast Hip Hop.
Copyright: © Ben Brooks, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Creative, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Documentary Projects
Photographer Name: Santiago Mesa
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Image Description: Darwin, a young Venezuelan coca leaf picker (raspachín), rests on freshly harvested coca leaves in Putumayo, Colombia, before they are processed. The raspachíne's work is physically demanding, but the shifts are usually only half a day and are paid in cash. For many migrants, coca harvesting is one of the few reliable sources of income.
Series Name: Under the Shadow of Coca
Series Description: In the southern Colombian department of Putumayo, coca cultivation remains one of the few economic options for rural families in this neglected border region. This project follows farmers and families whose livelihoods depend on an illicit economy shaped by poverty, weak state presence, and armed control, as well as members of Comandos de la Frontera, the armed group that controls the territory and the cocaine trade. While some families try legal alternatives, coca often provides the only stable income. Under the Shadow of Coca shows that many of the local producers are not traffickers, but campesinos (farmers), and that it is usually armed groups who profit from the trade of coca.
Copyright: © Santiago Mesa, Colombia, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Documentary Projects
Photographer Name: Alexandre Bagdassarian
Image Name: Sixteen and a Half
Year: 2026
Image Description: The photograph happened quickly. The flowers, the same colour as the detainee's sneakers and cap, immediately motivated him to pose. Many young people have experienced a similar scenario: drug dealing, then prison. He tells the photographer his story with ease: 'I started at 10 o'clock, in a small park, with a bag. Inside, there was really a big package. A lot of money.'
Series Name: Sixteen and a Half: Eight Months in a Juvenile Prison
Series Description: Over a period of eight months, Alexandre Bagdassarian documented the daily lives of young detainees in one of France's six juvenile prisons, one of the country's least visible institutions. The photographer sought to understand what it means to be young and confronted with prison, not from the perspective of legal texts or institutional discourse, but by observing the trajectories, voices, and bodies of those living this reality. Often relegated to silence or the margins, their stories are rarely told, and when they are, they reach us through a media or political lens, the photographer explains, sometimes 'shaped by security driven ideologies.'
Copyright: © Alexandre Bagdassarian, France, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Environment
Photographer Name: Shane Hynan
Image Name: Beneath | Beofhód
Year: 2026
Image Description: A family footing turf for domestic use. Ticknevin, County Kildare, Ireland.
Series Name: Beneath | Beofhód
Series Description: Beofhód — 'life beneath the sod' in Irish — evokes the primal significance of bogs in Celtic tradition. The series examines the cultural and environmental aspects of bogs in Ireland and contemplates themes of social and environmental justice, topographical mapping and the evolving perception of peatlands in an era of de-industrialisation. Although urgent ecological imperatives have ended large-scale peat extraction, they have also created tension with small-scale harvesting for domestic use, which still persists. Referencing Joseph Beuys' assertion that bogs are 'the liveliest elements in the European landscape' and 'preservers of ancient history,' this work reflects on the endangered status of these habitats in the artist's post-industrial surroundings. In this project, bogs are used as 'a metaphor for Ireland and the Irish psyche, and for local, human and personal exploration of a global issue.'
Copyright: © Shane Hynan, Ireland, Finalist, Professional Competition, Environment, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Environment
Photographer Name: Matteo Trevisan
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Image Description: Jinwar is an eco-feminist village founded during the Syrian war as a refuge for women. The village, powered in part by solar energy, was built collectively and inaugurated in 2018. Amal arrived here a year ago and says that 'the relationships among women are beautiful; I love everything here.
I hope to be reborn here, with a clear mind, and to live in peace — here it's possible.'
Series Name: Jinê Land: Where Women Keep the Earth Alive
Series Description: Jinê Land: Where Women Keep the Earth Alive tells the story of women shaping the ecological and social future of Rojava in northeast Syria. In a region that is still recovering from war and fragmentation, women lead the fight for environmental restoration, sustainable agriculture, and community self-governance. Since 2012, Kurdish, Assyrian, Arab, and Armenian communities have self-organised under a model inspired by democratic confederalism, integrating women's liberation and ecology. Women manage schools, cooperatives, health centres, and local councils, ensuring their leadership in both social and ecological spheres. Villages such as Jinwar embody this vision: female-led, sustainable, and resilient, offering a space for education, self-reliance and communal life. Through photography, this project captures the intersection of freedom, ecology, and community, revealing a radical social experiment where women are both the stewards of the land and the architects of a new society.
Copyright: © Matteo Trevisan, Italy, Finalist, Professional Competition, Environment, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Landscape
Photographer Name: Michael Blann
Image Name: Col du Tourmalet, France
Year: 2026
Image Description: The first mountain climb ever traversed by the Tour de France has earned its mythical status as one of the hardest cycling climbs.
Series Name: Mountain Roads
Series Description: Mountain Roads is a series of photopolymer etchings of iconic European mountain roads. This ongoing project aims to document the greatest cycling roads spanning the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Dolomites, the Picos and the Spanish Islands. It celebrates the permanence of mountains and the feats of engineering and construction required to navigate and build a route through and over these formidable climbs.
Copyright: © Michael Blann, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Landscape
Photographer Name: Andreas Secci
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Series Name: The Oyster
Series Description: This series of abstract landscapes depicts oyster farming on the French coast of Normandy and Brittany, where the farms stretch along the entire coastline, shaping the character of the landscape. With a tidal range of up to 12 metres, the oyster beds disappear from view at high tide but are fully exposed at low tide. Yet it is only from a bird's-eye view that the vastness of these abstract landscapes, reminiscent of Roman legions, can be appreciated.
Copyright: © Andreas Secci, Germany, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Perspectives
Photographer Name: Fredrik Lerneryd
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Image Description: Sheriff Knight (centre), the 'Dancing Cowboy,' leads the line dance during International Cowboy Day.
Series Name: Country Music in Kenya
Series Description: This series was photographed over an 11-month period, with the highlight being the International Cowboy Day festival, in Nairobi, Kenya. The festival drew around 3,000 country music fans to Ngong Racecourse in the final week of July. Country Music has been played on the radio in Kenya since colonial times and the popularity for the genre is growing, with shows being held by various artists in local bars a few times per week.
Copyright: © Fredrik Lerneryd, Sweden, Finalist, Professional Competition, Perspectives, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Perspectives
Photographer Name: Hayate Kurisu
Image Name: Living Photographs
Year: 2026
Series Name: Living Photographs
Series Description: 'My wife and I lost our child to stillbirth at 18 weeks of pregnancy. In the days leading up to the cremation we spent time together at home, during which time I took many photographs. In contemporary society, photographs are easily shared, generated and consumed, and with the rise of social media and artificial intelligence, the meaning of photography as a medium continues to shift. However, pressing the shutter in front of my child brought a renewed awareness of photography's fundamental qualities — its relationship to time and to the body. These photographs were not taken for the purpose of record or explanation. They are made simply to face the time that undeniably existed in that place. For me, looking at these photographs is an act of reaffirming the sensation of being alive.'
Copyright: © Hayate Kurisu, Japan, Finalist, Professional Competition, Perspectives, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Portraiture
Photographer Name: Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni
Image Name: The Faithful
Year: 2026
Image Description: A priest distributes communion during Pope Francis's funeral mass. Some 4,000 priests concelebrated the mass for approximately 200,000 mourners. Ritual persisted through the institutional transition, with the Eucharist administered regardless of papal presence.
Series Name: The Faithful
Series Description: Between the death of one pope and the election of the next, crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, for an event that functions simultaneously as sacred ritual and global spectacle. The photographers explain that pilgrimage took on the traits of fandom, as rosaries, flags and prayer gestures were performed with full awareness of the attendant cameras and media. Individual devotion unfolded 'within a choreography shaped by mass attendance and global broadcast.' The portraits in this series capture that 'doubled consciousness': believers performing acts of faith within a mediated public space, where personal conviction merges with stadium-scale performance.
Copyright: © Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy, Finalist, Professional Competition, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Portraiture
Photographer Name: Federico Borella
Image Name: Koryo-Saram
Year: 2026
Image Description: The K-pop group Blue Flame, established in 2023, during a rehearsal in the Bucheon University gym. Bucheon University in Tashkent is a branch campus of a Korean university and has become one of the main meeting points for this scene, bringing together young people from different backgrounds who share the same enthusiasm.
Series Name: Koryo-Saram: How Descendants of Deported USSR Koreans Are Rediscovering Their Roots in Uzbekistan
Series Description: Koryo-saram are the descendants of ethnic Koreans from the former USSR who were forcibly deported to Uzbekistan through Stalin's ethnic cleansing policies. Over time, they became an integral part of Uzbek society, but their connection to Korea gradually faded, and by the 1990s, few could even read or write Korean. Today, most Koryo-saram identify as Uzbek citizens, with only faint traces of Korean cultural heritage remaining. However, a new generation, influenced by the 'Korean Wave,' is rediscovering its roots through music, film, dance and language, particularly in Tashkent, where this revival also includes many young Uzbeks.
Copyright: © Federico Borella, Italy, Finalist, Professional Competition, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Sports
Photographer Name: Todd Antony
Image Name: Against the Reins
Year: 2026
Image Description: Taken during the same buzkashi match, this series shifts from a strict documentary approach towards an 'emotional truth grounded in real events.'
Series Name: Buzkashi
Series Description: Buzkashi (literally meaning 'goat pulling' in Persian) is the fierce, ancient sport of Tajikistan. It is similar to polo, but there are no teams and no boundaries. The ball is the eviscerated, headless carcass of a goat and the aim is brutally simple: seize it, hold it, break free. The game was born among the nomadic horse cultures of Central Asia, where strength and horsemanship were measures of identity. For centuries, chapandaz (riders) have hurled themselves into this churning mass of hooves and bodies, fighting for honour and a moment of clear sky among the dust.
Copyright: © Todd Antony, New Zealand, Finalist, Professional Competition, Sport, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Sports
Photographer Name: Morgan Otagburuagu
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Image Description: Misturah Idowu after training.
Series Name: Beneath the Bridge
Series Description: In the shadowed arch of an underpass in Lagos, Nigeria, far from the gleam of professional rings, a raw and resonant rhythm of ambition pulses. Beneath the Bridge documents a makeshift gym where amateur boxers — boys and girls alike — forge their discipline and dreams with nothing but tyres, rope, water and willpower. The project creates an intimate, visceral portrait of grassroots aspiration, exploring universal themes of resilience, gender equality in traditionally male spaces, and the profound human need to carve a place of purpose from the margins. Photographed in the natural light of the underpass, shadows and hard light sculpt the boxers' bodies, as textures of rust, rope and sweat become central to the narrative. This is not a story about winning or losing, but of preparing; a testament to the unadorned, potent moments where character is built before a single punch is ever thrown.
Copyright: © Morgan Otagburuagu, Nigeria, Finalist, Professional Competition, Sport, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Still Life
Photographer Name: Daniele Vita
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Image Description: A pistachio remains encased in its natural husk, left on the fruit beyond its ideal time. The husk has gradually darkened and started to break down, showing wrinkles, irregularities, and the first signs of decay. The contrast between the pale shell and the darkened husk highlights the pistachio's natural transformation, from fresh to weathered by time.
Series Name: The Bronte Pistachio
Series Description: For almost a year, Daniele Vita photographed the pistachios of Bronte, Sicily, from the trees to the harvested nuts. Studying them one by one, he realised that although they seemed alike, each was unique. This experience became a reflection on a society 'that tends to standardise and erase differences', and the photographer set out to capture the individuality of every natural element. In the final stage presented here, the pistachio stops being immediately recognisable and becomes an open image, where anyone can find their own perspective and meaning.
Copyright: © Daniele Vita, Italy, Finalist, Professional Competition, Still Life, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Still Life
Photographer Name: Vilma Taubo
Image Name: Rubber Duck
Year: 2026
Image Description: Thailand.
Series Name: Talking Without Speaking
Series Description: Talking Without Speaking is a series of photographs of everyday objects that have become symbols of protest. Each of the objects can be connected to a specific historical period, a particular rights struggle or a particular country. Some have been intentionally brought to the streets to support a cause, while others have unexpectedly found their place in the public sphere, revealing their symbolic power over time.
Copyright: © Vilma Taubo, Norway, Finalist, Professional Competition, Still Life, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Wildlife & Nature
Photographer Name: Wolfgang Duerr
Image Name: 10:01:23
Year: 2026
Image Description: All of the images in WILD were taken with wildlife cameras set up in forests and along rivers in the UNESCO Rhön Biosphere Reserve in Northern Bavaria, Germany. The image titles indicate the time at which it was captured.
Series Name: WILD
Series Description: The photographs in this series were taken by a wildlife camera. Exposures were made when animals activated the camera via motion sensors, in the absence of the photographer and without his intervention. He was responsible for the preparation and follow-up work; installing the wildlife cameras in carefully selected locations and evaluating and processing the images that were generated over a period of months. The finished work is thus a co-production with the wild animals, whose decisive part — the moment the image is created — was not chosen by the photographer.
Copyright: © Wolfgang Duerr, Germany, Finalist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
Wildlife & Nature
Photographer Name: Anita Pouchard Serra
Image Name: Untitled
Year: 2026
Image Description: Passengers in a car watch a capybara eating grass by the side of a road running through the private city. The animals attract attention, and many people stop during the day to take photographs of them.
Series Name: Capybaras at the Forefront of the Dispute and Resistance in Buenos Aires
Series Description: Nordelta is one of the best-known private developments in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was built on a wetland, an ecosystem in which the land is covered by water, which is the main factor controlling plant and animal life. In recent years, the development's 45,000 upper-class residents have seen numerous capybaras enter the neighbourhood. Social media has been flooded with videos and photographs of the area's original inhabitants in swimming pools, crossing the street, or, more tragically, run over or trapped in drains or sewers. In a little over three years, the capybara population tripled to 1,000, leading the Buenos Aires government to approve population control plans that include selective sterilisation and contraception. At the same time, the presence of capybaras has divided the community, with neighbours arguing for and against the capybaras; for the rights of nature and against uncontrolled urban growth on natural land.
Copyright: © Anita Pouchard Serra, Argentina, Finalist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, Sony World Photography Awards 2026
