The winners and shortlisted photographers for the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards have been announced.
Now in its 19th year, the competition honours the most compelling single images captured over the past 12 months.
Ten category winners have been unveiled, alongside 120 shortlisted photographs in the Open competition. The 2025 categories span Portraiture, Street Photography, Travel, Natural World & Wildlife, Object, Motion, Lifestyle, Landscape, Creative and Architecture.
This year saw more than 430,000 submissions from over 200 countries and territories, reflecting the competition’s global reach.
One of the ten Open category winners will go on to be named Open Photographer of the Year at an awards ceremony in London, on April 16. Along with the title, the overall winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a Sony Digital Imaging equipment kit.
Below are the 10 winners from each category and a selection of shortlisted submissions.
Winner of the Portrait category is Ellie Leontiev’s ‘The Barefoot Volcanologist.’ It shows a volcanic scientist standing on a volcanic rock bomb in Vanuatu
Street Photographer is Italy’s Giulia Pissagroia, with her picture ‘Between the Lines’ – a candid, family picture captured in Norway
Winner of the Travel category is from Japan’s Megumi Murakami. The picture, captured at Abare Festival in the Noto region of Japan, shows men leaping into the river as torches blaze, a centuries old tradition
Robby Ogilvie’s ‘Colour Divides’ won the Object category. The picture shows the contrasting bright colors in the Bo-Kaap neighborhood of Cape Town, South Africa
The winner for Natural World and Wildlife comes from Klaus Hellmich. The picture shows an Arctic fox in Norway, bracing against wind and snow
Franklin Littlefield of the United States won the Motion category. The image was taken at a concert in Rhode Island
A portrait of ‘Charlotte and Dolly,’ won the Lifestyle category for Vanta Coda III. It shows a cow and a young woman resting together in a West Virginia barn
A shot of the Sossusvlei dunes in Namibia won the Landscape category for Fritz Rumpf of the United States
Siavosh Eljali’s ‘Lost Hope’ – an ode to Iranian women – won the Creative category
An image of a paper mill in Obbola, Sweden, taken by Markus Naarttijärvi, won the Architecture category
Poland’s Sebastian Szczepanowski’s shot was shortlisted for the Lifestyle category, capturing friends at a camper van
A Portraiture shortlist from the United Kingdom’s Mondo Love – with the subject’s one eye peeping from the plastic cover
A successful vibrant blue shortlist to the Creative category by France’s Marie-Line Dentler
A Motion submission and shortlisted image of a horse by Lorea Hausheer from Switzerland
Tim Munsey of the United States’s Natural World and Wildlife shortlisted image of an eagle
A Natural World and Wildlife shortlisted image of a stag from the UK’s Samuel Round
Another successful shortlisted image for the Natural World and Wildlife category, taken by Scott Portelli
Mexico’s Livier Miroslava Ultreas’s image was shortlisted in the Portraiture category
A shortlisted image for the Natural World and Wildlife category by Lisa Skelton of Australia
