Shortlist announced for 2018 Sony World Photography Awards

Photographers from over 200 countries and territories entered nearly 320,000 images across the annual competition, apparently the highest number of entries to date. The judges were particularly impressed with the high quality of work, and the shortlist's ability to offer insight into the foremost trends and contemporary concerns of photographers today.

Produced by the World Photography Organisation, the awards – now in their 11th year – publish a shortlist (top 10 per category) and commended list (top 50 per category), comprising some of the world’s finest contemporary photography captured over the past 12 months.

The international range of entries displays a huge diversity of imagery in terms of genre, style and subject matter across the awards’ four main contests: Professional, Open, Youth and Student Focus. The Professional competition includes 10 categories such as Architecture, Contemporary Issues, Landscape, Natural World & Wildlife, Portraiture and two new categories for this year; Creative and Discovery, while the Open competition offers 10 categories including Culture, Enhanced, Motion, Street Photography and Travel.

This year, the shortlist for the Professional competition includes stylish images of humanity’s obsession with wealth to raw images of the Rohingya refugee crisis, through to quirky portraits of dogs and their owners. The photographers will now compete to win their categories and Photographer of the Year title. Meanwhile, the Open contest, which is judged on a single image, saw shortlisted works including beautiful imagery of frozen lakes, sunlit deserts and hidden forests; stunning portraits of faces from around the world, and unique insights in cultures and traditions that might otherwise be unseen.

The winners of the Awards will be announced at a ceremony in London on 19 April 2018. The Photographer of the Year, Open Photographer of the Year, the Professional and Youth competitions’ category winners and the 10 shortlisted Student Focus entrants will all be flown to London to attend. Category winners will also receive the latest Sony digital imaging equipment and will be included in the 2018 Awards' book.

An exhibition of all shortlisted and winning images will take place at Somerset House in London from 20 April until 6 May. Tickets are available via worldphoto.org.