BJP and World Photography Organisation announce new partnership as Sony World Photography Awards open for entries

British Journal of Photography is pleased to announce a media partnership with the World Photography Organisation, to coincide with the opening of the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards.

The winner of the Student Focus strand of the Sony award will be featured at BJP online and have the chance to share their work through our Instagram feed.

The ninth edition of the awards remain free to enter, and are spread across five separate competitions: Professional, Open, Youth, National and Student Focus. Last year, the awards attracted 173, 444 entries from 171 countries.

Image © Andrea Gjestvang, Norway, 1st Place, People, Professional Competition 2013

The winning photographers will see their work exhibited at the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at Somerset House, London, as well as in the 2016 edition of the awards’ photobook. A sum of $30,000 will also be shared between the overall winners, as well as Sony imaging equipment. Last year, the exhibition at Somerset House saw a record 33,394 visitors.

From this year, the award will be split into two distinct photographic genres – Art and Documentary. The change, the award says, is designed “to provide a clearer structure in which photographers can be recognised.”

Image © Natalia-Wiernik, Poland, Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow

Within each genre are a series of categories, with Art presenting the new Staged and Candid categories and Documentary divided into Daily Life and Environment.

The Sony World Photography Awards shortlist will be announced on 23 February and overall winners on 21 April, with an exhibition at Somerset House, London running from 22 April – 8 May 2016. Enter here.

Tom Seymour

Tom Seymour is an Associate Editor at The Art Newspaper and an Associate Lecturer at London College of Communication. His words have been published in The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, Financial Times, Wallpaper* and The Telegraph. He has won Writer of the Year and Specialist Writer of the year on three separate occassions at the PPA Awards for his work with The Royal Photographic Society.