Sony World Photograph Awards National and Regional Winners Showcase International Photography Expertise

The Sony World Photography Awards unveiled the winners and shortlisted photographers for its 2026 National and Regional Awards, showcasing and celebrating the distinctive photographic expertise throughout the globe.

The 2026 Sony World Photography Awards ceremony is just below a month away, and the competitors organizers have been repeatedly sharing shortlisted and successful photographers in the course of the lead-up. A month in the past, the Sony World Photography Awards unveiled their Open Competition winners, and simply a few weeks in the past, the 2026 Professional competitors finalists have been introduced. The general winner, Photographer of the Year, will likely be topped on the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony on April 16 at Somerset House in London.

Photographers from greater than 200 nations and territories entered over 430,000 photographs on this 12 months’s Sony World Photography Awards. Of these, National and Regional Award winners have been chosen from the Open, Professional, and Student competitions. All single nation National Award winners and 1st Place Regional Award winners will likely be featured within the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards exhibition and can obtain a prize package of Sony Digital Imaging gear.

Professional Competition National and Regional Award Winners

The Professional competitors consists of a number of nationwide and regional awards, together with the Latin America Professional Award, the Japan National Award, and, new for 2026, the India National Award.

Mexican photographer Citlali Fabian received the Latin America Professional Award for “Bilha, Stories of my Sister,” which mixes portraits and digital illustrations to carry to the fore the tales of inspiring girls in southern Mexico. Fabian collaborated with activists and artists from Indigenous communities within the area for the award-winning work.

Photographers Mária Fernanda García Freire (Ecuador) and André Tezza (Brazil) completed second and third within the class.

Avijit Ghosh received the brand new India National Award for the collection “Keepers of Mangroves,” which focuses on a gaggle of widowed girls in Dayapur, India, who misplaced their husbands to tiger assaults. The girls have devoted themselves to restoring tigers’ pure mangrove habitats to cut back violent encounters between individuals and tigers.

Photographer Hayate Kurisu received the Japan National Award for the collection “Living Photographs.” This collection paperwork Kurisu and his spouse’s expertise shedding a toddler to stillbirth. Kurisu intimately captures his personal tragedy and the method of grief by tradition, custom, time, artwork, and panorama.

European Student Award

Another new addition to the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards is the European Student Award. This honor acknowledges glorious pupil tasks and amplifies rising voices throughout Europe from this 12 months’s broader, world Student competitors.

German photographer Teresa Halbreiter, from the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, took the highest prize for her collection “Stillgestanden (‘Attention’).” This collection explores how girls within the German Armed Forces navigate femininity in a male-dominated subject that always celebrates masculine beliefs of power and toughness.

Bennet Böckstiegel (Germany, Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie), Laurie Broughton (UK, University of West England), Laura Anna Rossa (Belgium, LUCA School of Arts Sint Lukas Brussels), and Albert Słowiński (Poland, Academy of Art in Szczecin) have been the 4 shortlisted photographers.

Open Competition

In the Open Competition, photographers from 25 nations and areas have been awarded. Below is a choice of the successful photographs. The complete gallery of all winning photographers is out there on the Sony World Photography Awards web site.

More From the Sony World Photography Awards

The 2026 Sony World Photography Awards ceremony is on April 16 at Somerset House in London, the place the general winner will likely be unveiled, and all the opposite winners named up to now will likely be celebrated. The Sony World Photography Awards exhibit begins on April 17 and runs by May 4.

Image credit: Sony World Photography Awards, World Photography Organisation