World's 10 best pro images now globally recognized at one of the industry’s most prestigious photography awards

The global photography world has been waiting for this: the Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) has officially revealed its Professional Category winners – 10 extraordinary images – selected from an astonishing 430,000 entries spanning over 200 countries and territories.

Now in its 19th year, the SWPA stands as one of the most prestigious photography competitions in the world – renowned for spotlighting the best photographers and most powerful images across genres – from wildlife and portrait to architecture, sports photography, and more.

Unveiled at tonight’s London ceremony, the 2026 SWPA category winners present a compelling visual feast – layered with depth, innovation, and striking storytelling. SWPA highlights, “Each of the winning photographers displays an original approach to storytelling and outstanding technical ability.”

SWPA professional category winners

Architecture & Design
Joy Saha (Bangladesh) for Homes of Haor

Homes of Haor documents the vernacular architecture of Ashtagram, Kishoreganj, in Bangladesh’s Haor region. Here, homes are built on naturally raised mounds that become islands during the monsoon, surrounded by seasonal floodwater, and boats become the primary means of travel.

From above, the settlements form distinct patterns shaped by elevation, water and function. Elevated roads, clustered dwellings, and carefully arranged livestock spaces reveal how rural communities design and adapt their built environment to a landscape defined by water.

Creative
& overall Photographer of the Year
Citlali Fabián (Mexico) for Bilha, Stories of My Sisters

Growing up without role models can make it difficult to dream or recognise one’s ability to shape the future. This photographic series seeks to create a precedent through collaboration with activists and artists from various Indigenous communities in southern Mexico, particularly from Oaxaca state.

Their stories offer a glimpse into the world we are living in, and how their roles and work are generating meaningful impact and change in their communities and beyond. This project is intended to be published as a children’s book, with digital illustrations made by the photographer.

Documentary Projects
Santiago Mesa (Colombia) for Under the Shadow of Coca

In the southern Colombian department of Putumayo, coca cultivation remains one of the few economic options for rural families in this neglected border region. This project follows farmers and families whose livelihoods depend on an illicit economy shaped by poverty, weak state presence, and armed control, as well as members of Comandos de la Frontera, the armed group that controls the territory and the cocaine trade.

While some families try legal alternatives, coca often provides the only stable income. Under the Shadow of Coca shows that many of the local producers are not traffickers, but campesinos (farmers), and that it is usually armed groups who profit from the trade of coca.

Environment
Isadora Romero (Ecuador) for Notes on How to Build a Forest

Notes on How to Build a Forest is a photographic project developed in Ecuador, in the territories of Mache Chindul and Yunguilla — landscapes marked by layered histories of settlement and relationships with the forest.

Through documentary and experimental photography that includes infrared, thermal, and pinhole techniques, as well as community archives intervened with fungi, the photographer invites us ‘to imagine how other organisms perceive the forest, and how the forest, in turn, observes us’.

In dialogue with scientific knowledge, the work constructs a polyphonic narrative that understands forests as plural, complex, and cultural spaces, expanding the ways in which conservation can be conceived.

Landscape
Dafna Talmor (United Kingdom) for Constructed Landscapes

Stemming from the photographer's personal archive, this series employs hand-printed and collaged colour negatives that are reconfigured into abstracted landscape representations. Purposefully undisclosed locations — sites that may otherwise be loaded with personal and political connotations — are collaged and repurposed, transforming them into spaces of greater universality.

Alluding to idealised and utopian spaces, these staged landscapes reference the histories of photography, from Pictorialist combination printing processes to contemporary discourse, conflating the ‘real’ and the imaginary. In doing so, the work embodies a plurality of viewpoints, playfully defying photographic traditions and Western pictorial conventions that embody singular, fixed and idealised views.

Perspectives
Seungho Kim (Republic of Korea) for Sunny Side Up: A Portrait of the Most Average K-Parenting Today

South Korea stands at a crossroads. In 2023, the country’s birth rate hit a record-low of 0.72 children per woman, while more than six million households now find the meaning of family in their dogs. Choosing between a child and a pet has become an ironic reality.

However, the photographer of this series chose to put both ends of this spectrum ‘onto life's hot frying pan.’ These photos are his ‘sunny side up’: a fragile, vibrant and beautifully messy record of the K-parenting world that lies ahead.

Portraiture
Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni (Italy) for The Faithful

Between the death of one pope and the election of the next, crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, for an event that functions simultaneously as sacred ritual and global spectacle. The photographers explain that pilgrimage took on the traits of fandom, as rosaries, flags and prayer gestures were performed with full awareness of the attendant cameras and media.

Individual devotion unfolded ‘within a choreography shaped by mass attendance and global broadcast.’ The portraits in this series capture that ‘doubled consciousness’: believers performing acts of faith within a mediated public space, where personal conviction merges with stadium-scale performance.

Sport
Todd Antony (New Zealand) for Buzkashi

Buzkashi (literally meaning 'goat pulling' in Persian) is the fierce, ancient sport of Tajikistan. It is similar to polo, but there are no teams and no boundaries. The ball is the eviscerated, headless carcass of a goat and the aim is brutally simple: seize it, hold it, break free.

The game was born among the nomadic horse cultures of Central Asia, where strength and horsemanship were measures of identity. For centuries, chapandaz (riders) have hurled themselves into this churning mass of hooves and bodies, fighting for honour and a moment of clear sky among the dust.

Still Life
Vilma Taubo (Norway) for Talking Without Speaking

Talking Without Speaking is a series of photographs of everyday objects that have become symbols of protest. Each of the objects can be connected to a specific historical period, a particular rights struggle or a particular country. Some have been intentionally brought to the streets to support a cause, while others have unexpectedly found their place in the public sphere, revealing their symbolic power over time.

Wildlife & Nature
Will Burrard-Lucas (United Kingdom) for Crossing Point

This series was produced using a remote camera trap installed at a forested river crossing in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve. The camera was set up in collaboration with rhino rangers to monitor endangered black rhinoceroses moving through a key corridor and was left running continuously for three months.

While its primary purpose was conservation monitoring, the system also allowed nocturnal scenes to be lit creatively, revealing the wildlife and habitat in dramatic ways that are rarely seen. The location was chosen for its striking scenery, enabling the images to document both animal movements and the ecological diversity and beauty of an area largely closed to tourism.

SWPA's exhibition in London

The Sony World Photography Awards 2026 exhibition is on display at Somerset House, London, from April 17 to May 4, presenting over 300 prints and hundreds of images in digital displays, as well as a special presentation by Joel Meyerowitz.

For more information and to discover the full list of winners and shortlisted entries, visit the official Sony World Photography Awards website.

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