[imagesource: Jan Grarup]

A good photograph can cast a completely different perspective onto the world, making you think and consider things from a new angle.

That’s what a lot of the winners in this year’s Sony World Photography Awards have managed to do, shedding light on otherwise unknown, dark parts of our world, and framing things so that we, as a society, can make changes.

Getting to know the Sony Outstanding Contribution to Photography award winner Edward Burtynsky, who is one of the more profound chroniclers of the damage done to our planet at the hand of humans, is a prime example of how powerful a single photograph can be.

This picture of his speaks volumes:

And this one of a phosphor tailings pond near Lakeland, Florida:

Anyway, the competition has revealed the highly anticipated overall winners from the 2022 Professional, Open, Student, and Youth caegories, plus the Professional competition category winners.

You can watch all that in this 30-minute video below or you can scroll down to catch a glimpse of some of the winning shots:

Many of the overall winner’s images were acknowledged with the 2022 Professional Competition Finalists, as well as the batch of winner announcements that we reported on in March.

Without further ado…

Direct your eyes up top to Jan Grarup’s shot in the top image of a Venezuelan migrant in Colombia.

Grarup won first place in the Documentary category for this poignant tale, as reported by The Guardian:

A young girl is being transported home by her father alongside a garbage site, on an abandoned airstrip outside Maicao in Colombia. More than 8.5 million people in Colombia urgently need help.

The financial collapse in Venezuela has left many with no access to emergency aid, shelter, clean drinking water or food. Children are paying the highest price.

Now consider ‘The Long Days of Hanau’ by Fabian Ritter, the second place Documentary Projects winner:

A portait of Piter Minneman, survivor of the February 2020 terrorist attack in Hanau, Hessen, Germany.

This photo essay accompanies the friends and relatives of those tragically murdered. In the weeks and months following the attack, solidarity groups and initiatives began forming to support the survivors. Mourning developed into anger and the desire for change.

Next is Brazil’s Ricardo Teles who took top spot in the Sports category for this shot of the ritual Kuarup:

The Kuarup is a ritual of Xingu indigenous Brazilians to honour the illustrious dead – it is the farewell and closing of a mourning period. The celebration takes place once a year in different villages and lasts for three days.

The highlight of this celebration is a competition in the martial art called Huka-huka, similar to Greco-Roman wrestling. This year’s ritual honoured the people who lost their lives between the years 2020 and 2021: four out of five were victims of Covid.

‘Living in the Transition’ was shot by Shunta Kimura from Japan, who won first place in the Environment category:

“I photographed these pictures in Gabura Union, Bangladesh during October and November 2021. Gabura Union is one of the most vulnerable areas to the impacts of climate change, and many residents suffer from its effects.”

“These include river erosion, landslides, rising salinity in fresh water sources and the tropical cyclones that occur frequently. The purpose of this photo essay is to capture and communicate the situation for people living quietly in this transition.”

Next up is the ‘Bare Land, Life on Earth’ series by Italy’s Lorenzo Poli which took first place in the Landscape category:

An uninhabitable volcanic desert in the Icelandic Highlands. The climatic conditions here are so harsh that, for the majority of the year, life cannot thrive.

Last but not least, in third place for Portfolio is Anna Neubauer’s ‘Reconnect, The Beauty of Humanity’ series:

“A lot of my work is centred on people with visible differences because I think the less diversity people see in their everyday lives, the more disconcerting they might find it – and that’s something I can change. For me, diversity does not exist without inclusion.

When I met Lauren on a hot day in London in 2021, I immediately connected with her. She is so hard-working, signed with a leading talent agency, and definitely one to watch.”

For more winning shots, head here.

All of the winning shots from the Sony World Photography Awards 2022 are being shown at an exhibition at Somerset House, London, which runs until May 2.

[source:guardian]