Congratulations to Micaela Valdivia Medina, a Peruvian student at Instituto Profesional Arcos in Chile, for being awarded the title of the Student Photographer of the Year for her series The Last Day We Saw the Mountains and the Sea. Micaela wins Sony digital imaging equipment worth €30,000 for herself and her university, inclusions in the exhibition and book as well as promotion via the World Photography Organisation’s channels.
Speaking about her win, Micaela says:
‘To be a winner in the Sony World Photography Awards is very important to me, but also to all the women I worked with for this project. To talk about and photograph prison spaces is never easy, but it is necessary to keep making and sharing these images. As a student, I appreciate this opportunity and recognition. At this time when photography and arts education is in decline, I think it’s important that students, teachers and professional photographers unite to protect it.’
In the Beginning was the brief for the 2025 Student competition. The emerging photographers were tasked with documenting the beginning stages of a story.
