World Press Photo announces regional winners

3 April 2023

The World Press Photo (WPP) has announced its regional winners for 2022, the first edition of the prestigious competition to adopt a new model aimed at improving representation in previously under-represented countries.

In total, twenty-four winners and six honourable mentions were selected, from over 60,000 entries from 3,753 photographers across 127 countries.

Africa, Open format. This web-based project explores the effects of rising seas on the local community in Al Max, a fishing village situated along the Mahmoudiyah canal in Alexandria, Egypt. © Mohamed Mahdy

The competition's regional model was introduced last year, and is made up of six regions, with a selection of entries per category chosen by a regional jury. From this, a global jury, consisting of the regional jury chairs plus the global jury chair, New York Times photo editor and co-founder of Diversify Photo, Brent Lewis, decide on the regional winners.

Finally, from these regional winners, the global winners are selected.

Included in the regional jury for Southeast Asia & Oceania was Sydney Morning Herald Managing Photo Editor Mags King, alongside four South East Asian-based professionals.

According to WPP, the introduction of this model last year gave a much more geographically balanced view of the world, with more nuanced perspectives on local issues.

South America, Stories. Vital to the livelihoods of many people in the Peruvian Andes, alpacas face new challenges due to the climate crisis. With natural pastures shrinking and glaciers retreating, these animals increasingly struggle to graze and hydrate. Alpaquero (alpaca-farmer) communities in turn may be forced to move to higher altitudes or to abandon their lifestyles. Here, Alina Surquislla Gomez, a third-generation alpaquera (alpaca farmer), cradles a baby alpaca on the way to her family’s summer pastures, in Oropesa, Peru, on 3 May 2021. © Alessandro Cinque, Pulitzer Center/National Geographic

The six global regions include four categories – Singles (single image), Stories (4-10 images), Long-Term projects (24-30 images), and Open Format.

“The photographs that we have chosen to represent 2022 are indicative of this moment in time, and will serve as historical documents of what the year was like for future generations to look back on and hopefully learn from,” said Lewis on the release of the Regional Awards.

From the devastating documentation of the war in Ukraine and historic protests in Iran, to the realities in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and the many faces of the climate crisis, WPP says the images remind us that humanity faces serious problems that must be faced. They also remind us the world is a beautifully varied place that should be celebrated in all its shapes, colours, names and beliefs.

Asia, Stories. Unable to afford food for the family, the parents of Khalil Ahmad (15) decided to sell his kidney for US$3,500. The lack of jobs and the threat of starvation has led to a dramatic increase in the illegal organ trade. Herat, Afghanistan, 19 January 2022. © Mads Nissen, Politiken/Panos Pictures

Every regional winner of the contest receives a monetary prize of €1,000, an invitation to the Winners’ Program in Amsterdam and a physical award.

The sole Australian representative in the competition is freelance photographer Chad Ajamian, who won the Southeast Asia & Oceania Open Format category for his series, Australian Floods in Infared, which offers a unique perspective on the recent floods that have devastated areas in New South Wales.

In the series, aerial infrared imaging renders vegetation in pinks and reds, contrasting sharply against blues and cyans, which represent water. These images make newly flooded areas easily discernible to post-disaster emergency responders, assisting with response and recovery.

The photos were taken during the rounds of devastating floods in New South Wales, which forced the evacuation of 18,000 people in March 2021. The increased intensity and frequency of flooding in the region is likely an outcome of the global climate crisis.

Flooding along the Hawkesbury River, a major waterway that encircles the Sydney metropolitan region, on 31 March 2022. The flood level reached an average of more than 13 meters and was the catchment's wettest 9-day period since records began. © Chad Ajamian

Image of a junction in Mogil Mogil, New South Wales, 19 April 2021. Emergency response agencies utilize infrared aerial imagery to determine the extent of damage and can also determine safe ingress routes for response teams. © Chad Ajamian

A flooded forest in Mungindi, New South Wales, on 19 April 2021. This area forms a natural basin, which can further isolate remote communities for weeks at a time, requiring emergency air supplies of food and medicine. © Chad Ajamian

A view of the Lachlan River in the town of Forbes, New South Wales, after a flood inundated the town, blocking roads and access routes and damaging crop yields of local farms. 21 November 2021. © Chad Ajamian

You can a selection of the regional winners below, with the full selection on the WPP website.

North and Central America, Long-Term projects. Beautiful Poison
© Cristopher Rogel Blanquet, Mexico. The EU, China, the US, and other countries that have banned certain agrichemicals due to health and environmental risks still sometimes legally sell these substances to countries where labor is cheap and then import the products grown abroad. Although the Mexican government has begun to take steps against such double standards, some toxic pesticides remain on the market, and guidelines for their use are not always enforced. Here, Sebastián (18), who was born with hydrocephalus, holds onto his mother, Doña Petra, after she has bathed him, in Villa Guerrero, Mexico, on 18 March 2020. Doña Petra died of kidney failure during the pandemic. © Cristopher Rogel Blanquet, Mexico. — North and Central America, Long-Term projects. Beautiful Poison © Cristopher Rogel Blanquet, Mexico. The EU, China, the US, and other countries that have banned certain agrichemicals due to health and environmental risks still sometimes legally sell these substances to countries where labor is cheap and then import the products grown abroad. Although the Mexican government has begun to take steps against such double standards, some toxic pesticides remain on the market, and guidelines for their use are not always enforced. Here, Sebastián (18), who was born with hydrocephalus, holds onto his mother, Doña Petra, after she has bathed him, in Villa Guerrero, Mexico, on 18 March 2020. Doña Petra died of kidney failure during the pandemic. © Cristopher Rogel Blanquet, Mexico.

Asia, Long-term projects. Open format. Woman, Life, Freedom. This photo-based video project narrates one chaotic night in the life of an Iranian nurse as she saves the life of a young protester named Reza. The footage offers a rare glimpse into the dangers faced by protestors on the streets of Iran today, situated in the context of an inciting incident: on 16 September 2022, Mahsa “Jina” Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died after she was arrested by the Islamic Republic’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict rules restricting the dress and conduct of women. The ensuing protests quickly intensified, spreading across the country. © Anonymous

Africa, Stories. In 2015, the Egyptian government began constructing a New Administrative Capital (NAC) in the desert east of Cairo to accommodate ministries, top companies, and relieve chronic congestion and pollution in the city. Modelled on Dubai, this new urban environment will house 6.5 million people. Critics of the project argue that the NAC caters to the privileged minority and serves President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s efforts to consolidate power and establish a legacy. These images constitute part of a larger project on new capitals that addresses notions of labor, neoliberal urban development, and inequality. Here, a man prays near a billboard depicting Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, in the New Administrative Capital (NAC), on 12 January 2022.
© Nick Hannes, Panos Pictures — Africa, Stories. In 2015, the Egyptian government began constructing a New Administrative Capital (NAC) in the desert east of Cairo to accommodate ministries, top companies, and relieve chronic congestion and pollution in the city. Modelled on Dubai, this new urban environment will house 6.5 million people. Critics of the project argue that the NAC caters to the privileged minority and serves President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s efforts to consolidate power and establish a legacy. These images constitute part of a larger project on new capitals that addresses notions of labor, neoliberal urban development, and inequality. Here, a man prays near a billboard depicting Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, in the New Administrative Capital (NAC), on 12 January 2022. © Nick Hannes, Panos Pictures

Asia, Singles. Israeli police beat mourners accompanying the coffin of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to her funeral, in East Jerusalem, on 13 May 2022. Police prohibited people from carrying the coffin on foot through the city, which is customary for notable deaths, as mourners chanted “We sacrifice our soul and blood for you, Shireen”. Abu Akleh, a veteran reporter of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, was shot two days earlier while covering an Israeli military raid in Jenin, West Bank. Another journalist was wounded at the scene. After initial denials, the Israeli military has since admitted there was a “high possibility” Abu Akleh was shot by an Israeli soldier. © Maya Levin, Associated Press

South America, Open Format. Valentina is a 13-year-old who aspires to become a photographer and whose mother is in prison for marijuana possession. Ecuador’s ongoing prison crisis and punitive drug sentencing policy means that the separation between parents and children has been especially harrowing. The video and imagery in this multimedia project center around the imagination and experiences of Valentina as a young artist, whose rich inner world is not defined by her mother’s incarceration, even as she awaits their reunion. © Johanna Alarcón, Magnum Foundation/Panos Pictures

Europe, Long-Term Projects. An operator runs a routine check of a photobioreactor at a microalgae facility in Reykjanesbær, Iceland, on 13 July 2020. The company uses algae to produce a food supplement rich in antioxidants. © Simone Tramonte

North and Central America, Singles. A substantial decrease in flow of the Colorado River, caused by lack of rain and increasing demand for water upstream, now requires these workers to provide water for the bees in troughs. Heat and drought weakens bees, making them more susceptible to pathogens and parasites, and impacts the plants from which they feed. Between 2019 and 2020, colonies of bees – vital for pollinating crops – declined by 43.7 percent across the US. The jury felt this understated portrait invites reflection on an environmental issue that resonates at a global level. Here, Alfredo, Ubaldo, and José tend beehives near Wenden in the Arizona desert, United States, on 11 March 2022. © Jonas Kakó, Panos Pictures

Africa, Long-Term Projects. Mohammed Elfakhar, a potter, collects wood at the Skoura Oasis, Morocco, on 24 April 2022. He does this every Sunday, when he fires the pottery he has made during the week in a kiln. © M'hammed Kilito, VII Mentor Program / Visura

Europe, Stories. Title: The Siege of Mariupol. Russian army tanks move through a street on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, on 11 March 2022. © Evgeniy Maloletka, Associated Press.

The four global winners – the World Press Photo of the Year, World Press Photo Story of the Year, World Press Photo Long-Term Project Award and the World Press Photo Open Format Award - will be announced in late April.