The World Photography Organisation has revealed the names of the photographers who made it to the final and shortlist of the Professional dei competition Sony World Photography Awards 2023. Now in its 16th edition, the Professional competition rewards works that stand out for technical excellence and originality in exhibiting stories and themes.
Sony Photography Awards 2023, i finalisti divisi per categorie
The winner of the title Photographer of the Year 2023 will be selected from the Professional competition finalist pool and announced on April 13. Subsequently, from 14 April to 1 May 2023, a selection of works by the finalists and shortlisted photographers will be exhibited at Somerset House.
The 2023 edition surpassed the 415,000 nominations mark from more than 200 countries and territories. Of these, over 180,000 were submitted for the Professional competition, a record in the history of the Awards.
The three finalists and projects by category of the 2023 Sony World Photography Awards are:
Sony World Photography Awards 2023, Architettura e Design
In the corpus In Memoriam: Red Wall by Ricardo Bofill, Andres Gallardo Albajar (Spain). He pays tribute to the famous Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill (deceased in 2022) by immortalizing the labyrinthine interiors and exteriors of one of his most iconic buildings. In Stal-Vernacular Animal Sheds, Servaas Van Belle (Belgium) turns the lens towards animal shelters. Placing them in the center of the shot, wrapped in a thick fog, he manages to bring out all their humility and humanity, the wounds, the marks left by the weather. In Cement Factory, however, Fan Li (Mainland China) he chooses an essential black and white to photograph the imposing remains of an abandoned cement factory in southern China.
Sony World Photography Awards 2023, Fotografia creativa
The Right to Play by Lee-Ann Olwage (South Africa). It delves into the relationship between women’s empowerment and education. She reconstructs in a floral collage technique that infuses portraits with a sense of joy, playfulness and hope. In Africa Blues, Edoardo Delille and Giulia Piermartiri (Italy) they use a projector to superimpose images of environmental devastation onto scenes of everyday life. With the intention of highlighting the impact of climate change in Mozambique. Noemi Comi (Italy), with the series Wolf Hominarius, juxtaposes archival images with gaudy hues. All to revisit the ancient popular legend of werewolves, which in Calabria often became the pretext for confining women at home.
Sony World Photography Awards 2023, Documentaristica
In Gaza struggles to accommodate the living and the dead as population grows, Mohammed Salem (Territori palestinesi) follows a family forced to seek refuge and live in a cemetery. This is due to the overpopulation of the Gaza Strip. The Women’s Peace Movement in Congo di Hugh Kinsella Cunningham (Regno Unito) seeks to shed light on the often overlooked contribution of women to the Democratic Republic of the Congo peace process. Tariq Zaidi (UK) and his project Inside the Hamar Weyne Fish Market: the Heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. they restore the energy and atmosphere of the city’s busiest fish market which, despite the still ongoing civil war, remains one of the main local economic activities.
Environment
Affected by the gradual drying up of the Colorado River, Jonas Kakó (Germania) rely on the images of The Dying River the task of telling what consequences man’s intrusion can have on local communities and their habits. Miruku di Marisol Mendez (Bolivia) e Federico Kaplan (Argentina) focuses on the connection between vulnerability to climate change and gender inequality. He takes place in an indigenous community of La Guajira, Colombia, victim of a devastating drought. In Green Dystopia, Axel Javier Sulzbacher (Germania) shows the price to pay to meet the growing demand for avocados in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
Landscape
The images of Event Horizon di Kacper Kowalski (Polonia) they were taken during 76 solo flights and 200 hours at high altitudes. They represent the abstract patterns drawn by the ice on the water in Poland in the middle of winter. In Postcards from Afghanistan after forty years of war, Bruno Zanzottera (Italia) photograph the scars that furrow the Afghan landscape. Loss and Damage by Fabio Bucciarelli (Italy) studies the destruction wrought by four years of continuous flooding in South Sudan. Well represented by buildings and vehicles half-submerged in water.
Portfolio
In Riverland and other projects by Marjolein Martinot (Paesi Bassi), let’s relive the sensations of a long summer. All through the photographs of some bathers in the south of France. With Portfolio, Marylise Vigneau (France) features a collection of contrasting moments: from an elderly veteran recovering from Covid to a portrait of a little girl from Lahore. The Portfolio of James Deavin (UK)which originated when the author lived in Saudi Arabia, juxtaposes images of migrant workers with scenes of leisure.
Portrait
In Afghanistan’s Girls Athletes, Ebrahim Noroozi (Iran) portrays Afghan female athletes in sportswear. She contests the ban on women practicing sport imposed by the Taliban regime. Their identity is hidden by the burqa. Our War by Edgar Martins (Portugal) is a tribute to a close friend of the photographer, the photojournalist Anton Hammerl. He was assassinated during the 2011 Lebanese civil war, but his remains have never been found. The corpus is structured like a self-portrait by Hammerl, with posed shots of the people he had photographed and known. Jean-Claude Moschetti (France), with his Egungun, presents the traditional costumes worn in Benin during voodoo rituals. They honor the spirits of ancestors and perpetuate their memory.
Sport
In Female Pro Baseball Player Succeeds in All Male Pro League, Al Bello (United States) documents the exploits of Kelsie Whitmore. She is the first professional baseball player to enter the men’s professional league. Mundialito by Andrea Fantini (Italy) describes the pathos and emotions of one of the most important indigenous soccer tournaments in South America. Horse racing is instead the protagonist of Fallou Diop, the Unpredicted Hope of the Racetrack, la serie di Thomas Morel-Fort (Francia). Dedicated to a young and talented Senegalese jockey.
Still life
In Cryogenia, Jagoda Malanin (Polonia) recalls the geological period of the cryogenian. He photographs so small treasures chosen by his daughter and frozen, that they push the viewer to wonder: what will we leave behind? Inspired by the comings and goings in a garden centre, Kechun Zhang (Mainland China) designed The Sky Garden. It is a sequence of images with a surreal atmosphere that depict plants and rocks suspended from a crane. The visit of Carloman Macidiano Céspedes Riojas (Argentina) shows the meals requested by the inmates of a prison in northern Peru. Thus let the tenderness and affection of the families who visit their loved ones shine through.
Nature and Wildlife
After exploring the heart of the forest, Sriram Murali (India) ha prodotto Billions of Synchronous Fireflies Light up a Tiger Reserve, which documents a dazzling spectacle of nature: the luminous synchronization of thousands of fireflies. From the GermaniaAdalbert Mojrzisch reveals the brilliant colors and unexpected patterns of insects seen under the microscope in Small Backlit Animals. In Cities Gone Wild, Corey Arnold (Stati Uniti) crosses the United States on the trail of black bears, coyotes and raccoons, witnessing the extraordinary ability of these animals to co-exist with humans in urban environments.
For the Professional competition, the finalist and shortlisted works were judged by: Mariama Attah, Exhibition Manager, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, UK; Tandazani Dhlakama, Assistant Curator, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa; Elisa Medde, editor-in-chief of FOAM Magazine, The Netherlands; Ioana Mello, independent curator and photo editor; managing member of FotoRio, Brazil; Sujong Song, curator at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Korea; and Mike Trow, independent curator, photo editor and Jury President.
The overall winners of the Student, Youth, Open and Professional competitions of the 2023 Sony World Photography Awards will be announced on 13 April and will have their work exhibited at the regular exhibition at Somerset House, London, from 14 April to 1 May 2023.