Sony World Photo Awards National and Regional Winners Showcase Global Photography Talent
The Sony World Photography Awards unveiled the winners and shortlisted photographers for its 2026 National and Regional Awards, showcasing and celebrating the exceptional photographic talent across the globe.
The 2026 Sony World Photography Awards ceremony is just under a month away, and the competition organizers have been regularly sharing shortlisted and winning photographers during the lead-up. A month ago, the Sony World Photography Awards unveiled their Open Competition winners, and just a couple of weeks ago, the 2026 Professional competition finalists were announced. The overall winner, Photographer of the Year, will be crowned at the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony on April 16 at Somerset House in London.
Photographers from more than 200 countries and territories entered over 430,000 photos in this year’s Sony World Photography Awards. Of these, National and Regional Award winners were chosen from the Open, Professional, and Student competitions. All single country National Award winners and 1st Place Regional Award winners will be featured in the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards exhibition and will receive a prize kit of Sony Digital Imaging equipment.
Professional Competition National and Regional Award Winners
The Professional competition includes multiple national and regional awards, including the Latin America Professional Award, the Japan National Award, and, new for 2026, the India National Award.
Mexican photographer Citlali Fabian won the Latin America Professional Award for “Bilha, Stories of my Sister,” which combines portraits and digital illustrations to bring to the fore the stories of inspiring women in southern Mexico. Fabian collaborated with activists and artists from Indigenous communities in the region for the award-winning work.
Photographers Mária Fernanda García Freire (Ecuador) and André Tezza (Brazil) finished second and third in the category.
Avijit Ghosh won the new India National Award for the series “Keepers of Mangroves,” which focuses on a group of widowed women in Dayapur, India, who lost their husbands to tiger attacks. The women have dedicated themselves to restoring tigers’ natural mangrove habitats to reduce violent encounters between people and tigers.
Photographer Hayate Kurisu won the Japan National Award for the series “Living Photographs.” This series documents Kurisu and his wife’s experience losing a child to stillbirth. Kurisu intimately captures his own tragedy and the process of grief through culture, tradition, time, art, and landscape.
European Student Award
Another new addition to the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards is the European Student Award. This honor recognizes excellent student projects and amplifies emerging voices across Europe from this year’s broader, global Student competition.
German photographer Teresa Halbreiter, from the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, took the top prize for her series “Stillgestanden (‘Attention’).” This series explores how women in the German Armed Forces navigate femininity in a male-dominated field that often celebrates masculine ideals of strength and toughness.
Bennet Böckstiegel (Germany, Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie), Laurie Broughton (UK, University of West England), Laura Anna Rossa (Belgium, LUCA School of Arts Sint Lukas Brussels), and Albert Słowiński (Poland, Academy of Art in Szczecin) were the four shortlisted photographers.
Open Competition
In the Open Competition, photographers from 25 countries and regions were awarded. Below is a selection of the winning photos. The complete gallery of all winning photographers is available on the Sony World Photography Awards website.
More From the Sony World Photography Awards
The 2026 Sony World Photography Awards ceremony is on April 16 at Somerset House in London, where the overall winner will be unveiled, and all the other winners named so far will be celebrated. The Sony World Photography Awards exhibit starts on April 17 and runs through May 4.
Image credits: Sony World Photography Awards, World Photography Organisation
