As the deadline for the Professional Competition approaches on January 11, 2019 at 13.00 GMT, we take a look at some awarded series from the last three years of the Sony World Photography Awards.
Recognising outstanding bodies of work, the Professional Competition is free to enter and open to all. It is judged on a body of work across 10 diverse categories.
"Seawall" by Paul Hamilton
2018 Professional Competition, Shortlisted, Still Life
Still life of a Kentish seawall that stretches from Shellness, through Minster, to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey on the North East Kent Coast in the UK. Fascinating miniature landscapes are embedded within their own coastal landscape, etched into the seawall and reflecting the environment around them.
"Glaube, Sitte, Heimat (Faith, Custom, Home)" by Marvin Systermans
2017 Professional Competition, Shortlisted
In my work, I was concerned with the structural change in places where the citizens of the city of Arnsberg and the surrounding area meet and gather. The result is an aesthetic investigation and collection of places that stand between tradition and modernity. Places which are equally endeavors to preserve, as well as to meet the new needs of a structurally and demographically changing region. I developed the series in October 2016 within the framework of a project of the Westfalenpost, a regional daily newspaper in Südwestfalen, Germany. Some of the photos have been published in the newspaper but not the whole series.
"Pools Series" by Stephan Zirwes
2016 Professional competition, Shortlist, Architecture
In the ‘Pools’ series photographer Stephan Zirwes shows the importance of water, one of the most precious resources for life on our planet by contrasting the role of water as the consummate location for entertainment with the incredible waste of drinking water being used for private pools. Focusing on the privatisation of public pools, Zirwes highlights the trend to privatise a public asset for commercial exploitation. The clean formal language and the simple design of the pictures focus our interest on this newsworthy issue with elegance and a certain playfulness.
"Empire of Dust" by Amelie Labourdette
2016 Professional competition, Shortlist, Architecture
Amélie Labourdette interrogates the invisible landscape, the blurred zone of concern located below the visible landscape. The ‘Empire of Dust’ series of photographs was taken in the south of Italy, where financial crises and embezzlement have created an architectural aesthetic of incompleteness. Using an “archaeology of the present” she both reflects contemporary history by the yardstick of these unfinished architectures, and involves the viewer’s imagination so that a new view of the world unfolds. In front of these images, we become archaeologists of our time, able to look back at our present and see our future too.
"Eddie 'the Beast' Hall" by Rick Findler
2018 Professional Competition, Shortlisted, Sport
Eddie ‘The Beast’ Hall is the strongest man in the world. He has won UK's Strongest Man title six times in a row, and this year became the first Brit to win World's Strongest Man since Geoff Capes in 1985. But winning these titles is no easy task. The 30-stone (420 pound) athlete consumes an astonishing 12,500 calories a day and has to undergo excruciating physiotherapy on a regular basis. His training regime includes 4-hour gym sessions alongside swimming and of course, pulling cars. I followed Eddie on and off for three weeks, documenting what it takes to be the strongest man in the world.
"Russia Close-Up "by Alexander Anufriev
2017 Professional Competition, Shortlisted, Conceptual
Inspired by the work of A.Siskind, R.Gibson and M.Parr, I’m trying to visualise those trends and going-ons which I feel are important to document in modern Russia.
