The Distinctive Winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2026

The Sony World Photography Awards introduced the 4 general winners of its 2026 competitors, together with the distinguished “Photographer of the Year” title for the Professional class winner. The competitors additionally revealed the ten class winners of its Professional competitors.

Photographer of the Year 2026

Mexican photographer Citlali Fabián has been named “Photographer of the Year 2026” for the collection “Bilha, Stories of my Sisters.” Fabián additionally received first place within the “Creative” class.

Fabián is a visible artist from the Yalalteca Indigenous neighborhood in Mexico, at the moment primarily based in London. Fabián’s successful undertaking makes use of pictures to look at and analyze identification and the way it connects to location, migration, and neighborhood.

“Through her work, Citlali Fabián reflects on urgent questions of visibility and representation. In many Indigenous cultures, stories are told collectively, shaped by conversation and lived experience rather than by a single voice. Fabián brings this spirit into her photographic practice by working closely with each woman she portrays,” says Chair of the 2026 Professional Jury, Monica Allende.

“Her subjects are not simply photographed, they are active participants in shaping how their stories are told. Through this process, the artist highlights the presence, strength, and achievements of women who have often been overlooked, giving them the visibility and recognition they have long deserved within the wider social and cultural landscape,” Allende continues.

For the victory, Fabián wins a $25,000 money prize, plus a Sony Digital Imaging gear package and the prospect to have a solo showcase at subsequent 12 months’s Sony World Photography Awards 2027 exhibition.

Professional Category Winners

Photographers entered a collection of pictures throughout 10 classes within the 2026 Professional competitors. The finalists had been revealed final month, and the class winners had been introduced at this time on the Sony World Photography Awards gala tonight. One photograph from every of the successful photographers is offered beneath, and the total collection of successful pictures is available to view on the Sony World Photography Awards website. Since Fabián, the Photographer of the Year 2026, additionally received the “Creative” class, that class is just not featured beneath.

Architecture and Design

Documentary Projects

Environment

Landscape

Perspectives

Portraiture

Sport

Still Life

Wildlife and Nature

Open Photographer of the Year 2026

Unlike the Professional competitors, the place photographers enter a collection of 5 to 10 images, the Open competitors celebrates the one picture. The Sony World Photography Awards introduced the Open competitors class winners and finalists again in February, however that also left an general winner to be topped.

This 12 months’s winner is photographer Elle Leontiev from Australia for the photograph, “The Barefoot Volcanologist,” which additionally received the Portraiture class. Leontiev wins a $5,000 money prize and a Sony imaging package.

“In 2018 I stood in a London gallery at the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition and dreamed of being featured. Years later, my dream has become real,” Leontiev says. “Seeing my work win has filled me with overwhelming gratitude and tears of joy. It’s a reminder that quiet dreams, nurtured and pursued with heart, can come true.”

Student Photographer of the Year 2026

This 12 months, college students in pictures and artwork packages world wide competed to ship the very best images for the transient, “Together.” Different budding photographers tackled this pretty open-ended idea in vastly other ways.

The jury decided that scholar photographer Jubair Ahmed Arnob, from Counter Foto — A Center for Visual Arts, in Bangladesh, did it the very best. Arnob’s collection, “The Place Where I Used to Play,” showcases the altering panorama of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the way individuals are navigating the quickly altering city setting collectively.

“Winning the Sony World Photography Award feels like a dream come true — years of passion, memories, and stories finally being seen and recognized. It fills me with gratitude, joy, and a renewed drive to keep capturing the world through my lens,” says Arnob.

Youth Photographer of the Year 2026

The Sony World Photography Awards’ Youth competitors invited photographers aged 19 and beneath to share their finest images from the previous 12 months. 16-year-old Swedish photographer Philip Kangas got here out on high with the photograph, “Saving History From the Flames,” which reveals a pair of firefighters rescuing art work from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm throughout a hearth.

“I was very surprised when I heard that I was a winner in this year’s Sony World Photography Awards,” Kangas says. “I am very happy, as it gives confirmation to my hard work.”

Outstanding Contribution to Photography

As the Sony World Photography Awards introduced in November, celebrated photographer Joel Meyerowitz is being honored this 12 months with the Sony World Photography Awards Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award.

A number of Meyerowitz’s work, together with excerpts from his “Europa” collection, plus two new artist movies, is on show at Somerset House in London as a part of the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition.

2026 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition

Alongside the general winners above, the work of all of the finalists and shortlisted photographers throughout Professional, Open, Student, and Youth competitions is on show at Somerset House in London from April 17 by means of May 4. For those that can not make it to the present, the award-winning photographers are all featured on the Sony World Photography Awards website.

Image credit: Sony World Photography Awards. Individual photographers are credited within the picture captions.