Koch, director of the Constrasto agency in Italy and a judge on the Photojournalism and Documentary panel at this year's WPA, added that photographers have had to turn to awards because the traditional market for photojournalism has dried up so much. "We are in a very uncertain and difficult situation," he explained. "Photographers have to try to find other approaches because magazines have reduced the assignments they are able to produce and the market is dominated by a small group of agencies such as Getty and Reuters, who tend to operate on a subscription deal [eg picture editors pay a certain fee per month to access images]. The role of the independent photographer who is the owner of his images is diminishing."

Awards and competitions can offer an alternative and sometimes very lucrative option - the Sony World Photography Awards, for example, offered $25,000 to the over all winner. But, cautioned Koch, this can make subtle and not so subtle differences to the type of photography that is made. "Take the World Press Photo winner [Pietro Masturzo's shot of women shouting their dissent from the rooftops in Tehran after Iran's disputed presidential election]. That image wasn't published before it won the World Press Photo, it was too complex to be published in a newspaper. It was directed at awards."

Even still, photojournalists may be at an advantage in cross-genre awards such as the Sony World Photography Awards, with the urgency of important news events often outweighing the [still weighty] concerns of other kinds of photography. Fellow judge and photographic artist Bohnchang Koo touched on this at the same press conference, noting that "we discussed different images but in my opinion journalism has a very strong pull. When you see blood it has a strong effect, so visually it is always difficult to compare [different genres]". This year's winning portfolio - a set of images taken in abattoirs by Tommaso Ausili - was unanimously judged the winner by the whole judging panel.