Photographer of the Year
Congratulations to Zed Nelson for being awarded this year’s Photographer of the Year title for his series The Anthropocene Illusion. As well as winning a $25,000 (USD) cash prize, Nelson is given a range of Sony digital imaging equipment, press and media coverage plus global online promotion. Nelson also wins a solo presentation at Somerset House of his work as part of next year’s Sony World Photography Awards exhibition.
Speaking about his win, Nelson says:
"I'm very pleased for my work to be recognised in this award. Long-term projects take a long time to complete, so this really helps get the work out into the world."
The Anthropocene Illusion by Zed Nelson
In a tiny fraction of Earth’s history, humans have altered the world beyond anything it has experienced in tens of millions of years. Scientists are calling it a new epoch: The Anthropocene – the age of human. Future geologists will find evidence in the rock strata of an unprecedented human impact on our planet, from huge concentrations of plastics to the fallout from the burning of fossil fuels, and vast deposits of concrete used to build our cities. We are forcing animals and plants to extinction by removing their habitats, and divorcing ourselves from the land we once roamed. Yet we cannot face the true scale of our loss. Somewhere within us the desire for contact with nature remains. ‘So, while we devastate the world around us, we have become masters of a stage-managed, artificial ‘experience’ of nature – a reassuring spectacle, an illusion.’ Over six years, and across four continents, Zed Nelson has explored how we immerse ourselves in increasingly choreographed and simulated environments to mask our destructive impact on the natural world
Category Winners
Congratulations to the category winners. Photographers could submit a series of five to ten images interpreting one of the ten categories. Each submission entered into the Professional competition was rigorously judged by a panel of industry experts. Category winners each receive Sony digital imaging kit, inclusion in the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition and book, plus global online coverage. This year we’ve introduced the inaugural edition of Insights,
a day of tailored sessions with leading figures in the industry.
