The Best Photos From The Sony World Photography Awards Open Competition

22.03.2024 - 01:19 / forbes.com

A jaguar drilling the camera with its eyes as it attacks a crocodile, a village floating on Lake Titicaca as wildfire approaches, amazing portraits, architectural wonders and gorgeous landscapes are all among the 10 category winners and shortlisted single photos in the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards open competition, unveiled by theWorld Photography Organisation.

The free-to-enter competition recognizing single images from across the globe garnered more than 395,000 entries from 220-plus countries and territories in 2023.

Each category winner snares digital imaging equipment from Sony and goes on to compete for the Open Photographer of the Year title and a $5,000 prize that will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on April 18.

Selected winning and shortlisted images will be shown at the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at London’s Somerset House from April 19 to May 6 before hitting the road to other locations.

Now in its 17th year, Sony’s photo awards are a global voice for photography for both established and emerging artists.

The categories in the Open Competition include portraiture, travel, natural world and wildlife, lifestyle, landscape, architecture, creative, motion, object and street photography. All the Sony World Photography Awards winners and shortlisted photos can be seen here.

This is a particularly rare scene of a sperm whale calf nursing from its mother in the Indian Ocean. The young calf pushes its lower jaw into the nipple cavity and the mother squirts milk into the baby's mouth underwater. As young whales cannot breathe and nurse at the same time, these feeding events are typically quite short.

A great blue heron swallows its early morning catch at the base of a small spillway that flows into wetlands in Madison, Alabama.

A close-up portrait of a bumblebee’s right side details its eye and antenna with startling clarity—challenging any horror movie’s monster for effect.

A mother elephant greets her daughter. “I called the little one Sonia, or Sony,” said photographer Jesus Frias.

There are two characteristics that clearly distinguish bats from other mammals: They alone can fly, and they rest hanging upside down.

Unlike birds, bats cannot take flight from the ground because their wings are not strong enough. So they hang from trees to facilitate their flight.

On Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia, a tranquil floating village stands in stark contrast to the approaching wildfire on land nearby, a dramatic testament to nature’s dual disposition.

The Allée des Baobabs in Madagascar is probably one of the best places on the planet for viewing the incredible baobab trees. “Using a drone, I was able to compose the striking outlines of the baobabs along the