A hand-crafted flower, tipped on its head. A gas station in the Czech Republic winter. A golden supermoon casts its warm glow onto a towering skyscraper. These are some of the visually captivating images to be found within the 2024 Sony World Photography Awards. Here, we look through the National & Regional Awards Winners with subjects ranging from wildlife and nature to portraiture and community.
Alexa Obando | Costa Rica and Natalie Strohmaier | Germany
Alexa Obando celebrates the multiplicity of women’s bodies explaining, “I prefer to explore beauty in body hair and flowers through these portraits.” Elsewhere, Natalie Strohmaier uses organic forms in a series that explores the “artificial creation of beauty.” The artist hand assembles flowers using needles and wires, photographing the structures in the studio, then editing out the extra materials for a surreal final effect.
Tomáš Havrda | Czech Republic
In Gas Station in Winter Garb, Tomáš Havrda depicts a petrol station in the middle of a snowy blitz. Havrda took the photograph on the way home from work, capturing a moment of sheer wonder. It’s an image that evokes Charlie Kaufman’s mystery-horror I’m Thinking of Ending Things, or Summer Wagner’s ghostly, cinematic oevure. The garage radiates an intense, scarlet glow in the dark.
Barbara Szydlowska | Poland and Yasser Alomari | Saudi Arabia
Two figures embrace in a field, dressed in laced dresses. Barbara Szydlowska focuses on the juxtaposition of cultures, femininity and history in a work that emphasises tenderness and kinship. In another image, Yasser Alomari depicts a rare supermoon ascending the sky, an appearance that only happens three or four times a year. Here, the moon perches behind the Saudi Public Investment fund tower in Riyadh.
Mitul Kajaria | India
For the Indian National Award, Mitul Kajaria’s Child Sleeping at a Construction Site shows a young child of a daily wage construction worker napping in a hammock. The photograph is part of a research project that documents ways in which SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association), a women’s collective, responded to the pandemic in India. Here, an orange makeshift bed is strung from two pillars – creating a canopy of care.
Sony World Photography Awards | worldphoto.org
Image Credits:
© Alexa Obando, Costa Rica, Shortlist, Latin America Regional Awards, Sony World Photography Awards 2024
© Natalie Strohmaier, Germany, Winner, National Awards, Sony World Photography Awards 2024
© Tomáš Havrda, Czech Republic, Winner, Regional Awards, Sony World Photography Awards 2024
© Barbara Szydlowska, Poland, Winner, National Awards, Sony World Photography Awards 2024
© Yasser Alomari, Saudi Arabia, Winner, National Awards, Sony World Photography Awards 2024
© Mitul Kajaria, India, Winner, National Awards, Sony World Photography Awards 2024
