Italian artist Federico Borella has been crowned the overall winner in the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards.
Borella’s series Five Degrees, which documents male suicide in the farming community of Tamil Nadu, Southern India, was praised by the judges for its “sensitivity, technical excellence and artistry in bringing to light a global concern.”
He walked away with $25,000, together with photographic kit courtesy of the competition sponsor Sony.
Borella was one of 10 Professional competition category winners. The full list is as follows:
- Architecture: Stephan Zirwes, Germany, for series Cut Outs – Pools 2018
- Brief: Rebecca Fertinel, Belgium, for series Ubuntu – I Am Because We Are
- Creative: Marinka Masséus, Netherlands, for the series Chosen [not] to be
- Discovery: Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy, for the series Güle Güle
- Documentary: Federico Borella, Italy, for series Five Degrees
- Landscape: Yan Wang Preston, UK, for the series To the South of the Colourful Clouds
- Natural World & Wildlife: Jasper Doest, Netherlands, for the series Meet Bob
- Portraiture: Álvaro Laiz, Spain, for the series The Edge
- Sport: Alessandro Grassani, Italy, for the series Boxing Against Violence: The Female Boxers Of Goma
- Still Life: Nicolas Gaspardel & Pauline Baert, France, for the series Yuck
Other winners include Hawaiian photographer Christy Lee Rogers, who scooped the Open Photographer of the Year prize for her work Harmony (pictured above), while 18-year-old photographer Zelle Westfall, based in the USA, won the Youth Photographer of the Year.
Spanish photographer Sergi Villanueva, meanwhile, walked away with the title of Student Photographer of the Year. Villanueva represented Universidad Jaume I and won €30,000 worth of Sony photography equipment for the university.
Nadav Kander, whose photographic career has seen him shoot everything from portraits of celebrities and presidents through to his Prix Pictet-winning series Yangtze – The Long River, was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Photography prize. Previous recipients of the accolade include Candida Höfer, Martin Parr, Eve Arnold and Elliot Erwitt.
Images from this year’s winners, together with shortlisted and commended works, are now on display at the 2019 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House, London. The exhibition runs until May 6, before going on tour around the world. Images also feature in a book that accompanies the awards.
Now in its 12th year, the Sony World Photography Awards received a record-breaking 326,997 submissions from 195 countries this year. Next year’s competition is open for submissions from 1 June 2019.
Source: techradar.com
