American John Moore won the prestigious L’Iris d’Or/ Professional Photographer of the Year prize for his outstanding portfolio of images on the Ebola crisis in West Africa last year.
The Sony World Photography award winners and finalists this year ranged from social documentary work to conceptual images.
The 2015 Sony World Photography Awards L’Iris d’Or/ Professional Photographer of the Year prize has gone to American John Moore for his outstanding portfolio of images on the Ebola crisis which devastated West Africa last year. Moore’s work was chosen from the winners of the awards’ 13 professional categories, and the judges described his portfolio “Ebola Crisis Overwhelms Liberian Capital” as a hard-hitting series of images that cut to the heart of the tragedy.
Moore is a Senior Staff Photographer and Special Correspondent for Getty Images, and the winning photographs have been credited for the early exposure of the scale of the Ebola epidemic in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia and the epicentre of the deadly disease. He has received $25,000 USD as his prize.
Category winners included Architecture - Cosmin Bumbut, Romania; Arts & Culture – Aristide Economopoulos, United States; Campaign – Sebastian Gil Miranda, France (who lives in Argentina); Conceptual – Rahul Talukder, Bangladesh; Contemporary Issues – Scott Typaldos, Switzerland; Current Affairs – John Moore, United States; Landscape – Simon Norfolk, United Kingdom; Lifestyle – Li Fan, China; People – Giovanni Troilo, Italy; Portraiture – Rubén Salgado Escudero, Spain (who lives in Myanmar); Sport – Riccardo Bononi, Italy; Still Life – Donald Weber, Canada; and Travel – Bernhard Lang, of Germany.
Amateur German photographer Armin Appel was named the overall Open Photographer of the Year and received $5,000 for his image “Schoolyard”. A total of 79,264 images were entered into the Open competition. Youth Photographer of the Year, open to photographers aged 19 and under and judged on a single shot, was 19-year-old student Yong Lin Tan from Malaysia. The atmospheric winning image was taken in the back alley of the photographer’s grandmother’s house in Kedah, Malaysia. A total of 6,675 entries were received to the Youth competition.
Russian photographer Svetlana Blagodareva from St Petersburg State Polytechnic University beat nine other shortlisted students from around the world to collect the Student Photographer of the Year award. Her prize is €35,000 worth of Sony photography equipment for her university.
Renowned Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt was honoured at the awards with the Outstanding Contribution to Photography prize. A show celebrating a combination of Erwitt’s most familiar and lesser known work from across his 60 year career is showing at Somerset House, London as part of the Sony World photography Awards exhibition until May 10, and a book of the winner’s images will be published.
John Moore, Getty Images.
John Moore, Getty Images.
John Moore, Getty Images.
Corentin Fohlen, France, 2nd Place, Professional, Contemporary Issues.
Daesung Lee, Republic of Korea, 2nd Place, Conceptual category.
American John Moore won the prestigious L’Iris d’Or/ Professional Photographer of the Year prize for his outstanding portfolio of images on the Ebola crisis in West Africa last year.
