Iranian photographer Asghar Khamseh wins L'Iris d'Or Photographer of the Year and $25,000 prize for powerful portraits of acid attack victims
Kei Nomiyama, Japan, wins Open Photographer of the Year for best single shot
Fourteen Professional category winners announced
RongRong & inri honoured with Outstanding Contribution to Photography prize
Winners selected from a record-breaking 230,103 entries from 186 countries
All winners and shortlist to be exhibited at Somerset House, London 22 April - 8 May
Images available for publication at press.worldphoto.org or Image.net
The Jury were united in their admiration of the Photographer of the Year's work and the light it sheds on the tragic practice it exposes. Dominique Green, Chair, Documentary Jury
London, 21st April 2016: The overall winners of the world's largest photography competition, the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards, are named today by the World Photography Organisation. An exhibition of all the winning and shortlisted work will run at Somerset House, London from 22nd April - 8th May.
Following a record-breaking 230,103 submissions to its ninth edition, the awards' Honorary Judging Committee has selected Iranian photojournalist Asghar Khamseh as the recipient of its most coveted prize, the L'Iris d'Or Photographer of the Year.
Chosen from the winners of the awards' fourteen Professional categories, the winning work, Fire of Hatred', is a powerful portrait series tackling the social issues around the violent act of acid throwing. Khamseh was announced as the winner of the $25,000 (USD) prize at an awards ceremony in London in front of industry leaders. The winners and finalists of all fourteen Professional categories were also announced at the ceremony.
At the ceremony, the World Photography Organisation announced Kei Nomiyama, Japan, as the Open Photographer of the Year and recipient of $5,000 (USD). In addition, the organisation announced the winners of the Youth and Student Focus Photographer of the Year titles. All winners of the night received the latest Sony digital imaging equipment.
Scott Gray, CEO, World Photography Organisation comments: The awards consistently provide an incredible array of work, from a multitude of countries, and most importantlyprovide the chance for photographers to be discovered and extend their careers. I hope that the winning work this year can provide an inspiration to other photographers, helping to push their creative boundaries, whilst also serving to build the wider appreciation of photography.
The Sony World Photography Awards annually recognises the world's best photography. Free to enter and open to all photographers, the awards are an authoritative voice in the photographic industry that has the power to shape the careers of its winning and shortlisted photographers.
L'IRIS D'OR PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR - ASGHAR KHAMSEH
Born in Tehran in 1963, Asghar Khamseh is a photojournalist with Mehr News Agency, Iran, whose work focuses on social issues.
The winning series Fire of Hatred' is a powerful series of portraits of the victims of acid attacks. This beautiful yet thought-provoking work examines the social issues around this violent crime - looking past the physical and psychological damages suffered, and towards the social stigma and blame the victims, who are mainly women and children, suffer.
Dominique Green, Chair, Documentary Jury said of the work: Portraits of disfigurement resulting from social violence are undoubtedly a hard-hitting subject, and one which the longstanding tradition of documentary photography does not shy away from. The power of Asghar Khamseh's imposing series Fire of Hatred' is such that he enables the viewer to face head-on intimate images, which could be testing to examine closely, with empathy and respect which in turn allows the viewer to become a witness and not just a spectator. The Jury were united in their admiration of this work and the light it shed on the tragic practice it exposes.
PROFESSIONAL CATEGORY WINNERS AND FINALISTS
The winners of the seven Documentary and seven Art categories hail from 10 countries and, for the first time, two Professional categories have been won by one photographer in the same year. Photographers were judged on a body of work.
ART CATEGORIES
Architecture winner: Am lie Labourdette, France
2nd - Hui Zhang, China / 3rd - Stephan Zirwes, Germany
Candid winner - Kirstin Schmitt, Germany
2nd - Nick Ng, Malaysia / 3rd - Andrea Rossato, Italy
Conceptual winner - Julien Mauve, France
2nd - Alejandro Beltran, Venezuela / 3rd - Barbaros Kayan, Turkey
Landscape winner: Maroesjka Lavigne, Belgium
2nd Maoyuan Cui, China / 3rd Stefan Schlumpf, Switzerland
oPortraiture winner: Marcello Bonfanti, Italy
2nd Fauzan Ijazah, Indonesia / 3rd Rub n Salgado Escudero, Spain
oStaged winner: Alberto Alicata, Italy
2nd Cristina Vatielli, Italy / 3rd Kristoffer Eliassen, Norway
Still Life winner: Francesco Amorosino, Italy
2nd Oliver Schwarzwald, Germany / 3rd Hiroshi Watanabe, Japan
DOCUMENTARY CATEGORIES
Campaign winner: Jetmir Idrizi, Kosovo
2nd - David Chancellor, UK / 3rd - Antoine Repess , France
Contemporary Issues winner - Asghar Khamseh, Iran
2nd - Kevin Frayer, Canada / 3rd - Simona Ghizzoni, Italy
Current Affairs winner - Angelos Tzortzinis, Greece
2nd - Andrea and Magda, Italy & France / 3rd - Andrew Burton, USA
oDaily Life winner: Espen Rasmussen, Norway
2nd Sandra Hoyn, Germany / 3rd Stephanie Sinclair, USA
Environment winner: Kevin Frayer, Canada
2nd Li Feng, China / 3rd Lucy Nicholson, UK
People winner: Kevin Frayer, Canada
2nd Filippo Venturi, Italy / 3rd Alessandro DAngelo, Italy
Sport winner: Nikolai Linares, Denmark
2nd Jens Juul, Denmark / 3rd Annick Donkers, Belgium
OPEN PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR - KEI NO
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Iranian photographer Asghar Khamseh wins L'Iris d'Or Photographer of the Year and $25,000 prize for powerful portraits of acid attack victims
