20 Best Single Images Winning International Sony World Photography Awards 2023

The World Photography Organisation has unveiled the category winners and shortlisted images in the Open competition of the Sony World Photography Awards 2023, showcasing the best single photos from 2022.

More than 415,000 images from 200-plus countries and territories were submitted to the competition Sony World Photography Awards 2023 with over 200,000 entered into the Open competition.

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Each winner receives digital imaging equipment from Sony and will go on to compete for the prestigious Open Photographer of the Year title and a $5,000 prize.

The overall winner of the Open competition will be announced at the Awards ceremony in London on April 13.

Selected winning and shortlisted images will be shown as part of the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at London’s Somerset House from April 14 – May 1, 2023.

The prestigious, free to enter international competition, now celebrating its 16th year, is a global voice for contemporary photography spanning a large array of photographic styles and subjects, from wildlife and natural landscapes to surreal street photography.

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The categories in the Open competition include portraiture, travel, natural world and wildlife, lifestyle, landscape, architecture, creative, motion, object and street photography. All the Sony World Photography Awards winners and shortlisted photos can be seen here.

Natural World & Wildlife

A black-and-white portrait taken during a trip in south Texas, features two crested caracara birds perched still and looking out beyond the camera in the same direction, as if posing for the photographer.

This chinstrap penguin stood on a floating iceberg near the South Orkney Islands. This image was taken from a boat and no bait was used.

Creative And Motion

A haunting black-and-white portrait of two women from different generations, reminiscent of the visual language of 1940s family portraits.

Portraiture

Charlie, shot center of the frame, is a young teenager who, along with his friends, decided to turn an abandoned pub car park into a skatepark when most of them were closed during the pandemic.

Street Photography

‘Exhausted’ is an evocative black-and-white portrait of men at the point of collapse after lifting and carrying heavy wooden frames with statues showing biblical scenes through the streets of Andalusia during the traditional Easter processions of ‘Semana Santa’.

Landscape and Travel

A Greek landscape looms over a hiker climbing Mount Tymfi, which rises majestically in the background overlooking Pindus National Park.

‘Ghosts’, a dramatic black-and-white photograph of the Mundari tribe of South Sudan, depicts a herder among the nightly fires he and his fellow tribesmen light to keep the tsetse flies and mosquitoes off their beloved Ankole-Watusi cows.