The World Photography Organisation is pleased to reveal the finalist and shortlisted photographers in the Professional competition for the Sony World Photography Awards 2021. Now in its 14th year, the Awards' Professional competition rewards a remarkable body of work for technical excellence and a fresh perspective on contemporary subjects.The winner of Photographer of the Year 2021 will be selected from the group of Professional finalists and revealed on the 15 April. To mark the occasion a specially commissioned programme featuring the winners and hosted by art historian Jacky Klein and entertainer Nish Kumar will be available to stream via the World Photography Organisation digital platforms on the 15 April..
Over 330,000 images from 220 territories were submitted across the 2021 Awards' four competitions and more than 145,000 were entered into the Professional competition's 10 categories - the highest number of entries to date. A Portfolio category has been introduced this year, presenting photographers with the opportunity to submit individual images from various bodies of work but in which their style and technical skills are consistent throughout.
The Sony World Photography Awards 2021 finalist photographers and projects are:
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
In Hymn of the Building Site, Gu Guanghui (China Mainland) presents images of construction sites across Ninghai County, Zhejiang Province. Taken from above, the sites and workmen are reduced to abstract shapes. Also working with an abstract point of view is Frank Machalowski, (Germany) whose series Meisterh user Bauhaus-Dessau comprises layered images of Walter Gropius's Masters' Houses in Dessaue using multiple exposures. For his project, Eternal Hunting Ground, Tom Vocelka (Czech Republic) chose to photograph a former military complex turned pet crematorium by minimalist architect Petr Hajek.
CREATIVE
Using family heirlooms to create staged visual metaphors Sasha Bauer (Russian Federation) explores her family history through the prism of her grandfather's tumultuous life - from growing up in an orphanage to his years of service in the Russian army. Ampelio and I by Luigi Bussolati (Italy) features photographs found in an old family album and projected onto the landscapes of Parma and along the river Po. The project was conceived in memory of Bussolati's uncle, a passionate photographer himself who in 1942 tragically took his own life. In Mark Hamilton Gruchy's (United Kingdom), The Moon Revisited, previously unprocessed pictures of the Apollo missions from NASA and the JPL were combined with copyright free images which reference key periods in history, from past wars to the pop art movement to the current pandemic. The resulting composites contrast the unchanging surface of the moon with the always dynamic pace of events on Earth.
DOCUMENTARY PROJECTS
In Thatcher's Children, Craig Easton (United Kingdom) investigates the chronic nature of poverty and the effects of successive governments' social policies as experienced by three generations of one family in the north of England. The Killing Daisy by Vito Fusco (Italy) focuses on the pyrethrum, also known as the flower of death'. This delicate but deadly-to-insects daisy stands at the centre of a thriving organic insecticide industry in Kenya. Lorenzo Tugnoli's (Italy) powerful Beirut Port Explosion documents the devastation in the aftermath of the explosion that shook Beirut in August 2020, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate detonated in the city's port, killing hundreds and injuring and displacing thousands.
ENVIRONMENT
Mohammad Hossein Madadi's, (Islamic Republic of Iran) A City Under Dust Clouds features the cityscapes of Ahvaz, one of the world's most air polluted cities, covered under a sepia cloud of dust and contamination. In The Sea Moves Us, the Sea Moves Fuvemeh, Antonio P rez (Spain) presents the inhabitants of Fuvemeh, a small fishing village in Ghana, in a series of portraits juxtaposed with photographs of their abandoned homes, now lying in ruins due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion. Net-Zero Transition by Simone Tramonte (Italy) explores Iceland, a country which now produces 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, as a successful case study for other nations looking towards a more sustainable future.
LANDSCAPE
In Silent Neighbourhoods, Majid Hojati (Islamic Republic of Iran) presents a series of landscapes centred around deserted structures that in their quiet stillness poetically evoke the stories of those that once inhabited them. Za m by Andrea Ludovico Ferro (Italy) explores notions of iconography and devotion as expressed in the political propaganda posters that dominate the urban landscapes of Tripoli, Lebanon. Volcano by Fyodor Savintsev (Russian Federation) depicts the vibrant colours, natural diversity and otherworldly qualities of the volcanic belt in the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia.
PORTFOLIO
Taken in and around his hometown of Ourense in the region of Galicia, photojournalist Brais Couto (Spain) presents a series of poignant and dramatic scenes exploring local events and issues ranging from the effects of the pandemic to forest fires and carnival season. In Citizens of Tomorrow, creative director and photographer Loli Laboureau (Argentina) contrasts statured and lively street scenes of the world as we used to know it' with colourful and dramatically staged portraits depicting the new normal'. In images taken from a variety of personal projects, social documentary and portrait photographer Laura Pannack (United Kingdom) uses symbolism and a muted colour palette to evoke vulnerability in and intimacy with her subjects.
PORTRAITURE
For his second shortlisted project Craig Easton (United Kingdom) presents Bank Top, a collaboration with writer and
