15 Photos to Inspire You to Enter the Sony World Photography Awards 2027
The Sony World Photography Awards 2027 remain open for entry, and the World Photography Organization today announced the judges for this year’s competition, the 20th edition of the Sony World Photography Awards. As part of the announcement, the Sony World Photography Awards shared 15 photos already entered into this year’s competition, and they are fantastic.
Over its two-decade-long history, the Sony World Photography Awards have grown into a massive and very prestigious photography competition. Photographers entered over 430,000 images in last year’s competition, creating many challenging decisions for the judges. This year’s judges will surely have an equally tough job.
In the Series competition, which features a new “Histories” category this year, the judges are Monica Allende, Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo, Peipei Han, Candice Jansen, Amanda Renshaw, and Pauline Vermare. This group of six includes curators, photographers, and editors from organizations worldwide.
The new Histories category asks photographers to explore personal, cultural, and collective histories through a series of images. The winning projects will engage with the past and present, and entrants are even encouraged to utilize archival materials as part of their work.
The “Series” competition is new this year, having been renamed from the previous Professional category. The general idea remains the same, and entrants must submit a series of five to 10 related photos.
Maja Dyrehauge Gregersen, Managing Director of Copenhagen Photo Festival in Denmark, will judge the new Single Image competition and the Youth competition. Menno Liauw, Founder and Director of the FUTURES Foundation in the Netherlands, will judge the Student competition.
The Single Image competition, formerly called Open, requires photographers to submit a single photo for consideration across numerous categories, including a new “Animal Portrait” category. The 15 entered images featured throughout this story are all part of the Single Image competition.
“Now in our 20th year, the Awards represent two decades of celebrating photographers worldwide, and we’re as committed as ever to continuing that legacy. As always, the competition remains completely free to enter and is open to all photographers shooting on any device and at all stages of their careers,” the World Photography Organization explained when it opened up the Sony World Photography Awards 2027 in June.
Big Prizes
Unlike in prior years, photographers can enter both Series and Single Image competitions, although they cannot enter the same photo twice. The photographer who wins the grand prize for the Series competition, thus named “Photographer of the Year,” will receive a $25,000 cash prize plus a solo presentation as part of the next year’s Sony World Photography Awards exhibit. The overall Single Image competition winner will get $5,000.
The deadline to enter the Student and Youth competitions is November 27, 2026, and January 5, 2027, respectively. The deadline for the Single Image competition is January 5, and photographers have until January 12 to submit their photos for the Series competition. Complete rules and regulations are available on the Sony World Photography Awards website.
Image creditsSony World Photography Awards. Individual photographers are credited in the image captions.
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