More than 14 independent photographers, without affiliations nor assignments, have been recognised in this year's World Press Photo. However, that number could be higher considering that five Panos Pictures photographers also received prizes - Panos represents independent photographers - as well as two Reportage by Getty Images members.

Getty Images has received six prizes, while Reuters and Contrasto have three each. Agence France Presse, Associated Press, Institute for Artist Management and Vii Photo all have two, followed by Agence VU', Newsweek, EFE and Redux, each with one.

Speaking to BJP, Josh Lustig, assignments editor at Panos Pictures, believes this year's independent wins "show, to a certain extent, that photographers are having to do more themselves to tell the stories they want to tell. I still think that agencies have an important role to play, but we're seeing a lot more successful photographers realise that they can be less reliant on agencies."

But, Lustig adds, "they are being forced to be more independent because these assignments are a lot less frequent than they used to be."

"A lot of this work was done by photographers who decided they wanted to do a story and then got someone to come on board with them," said David Burnett, photojournalist and chair of this year's World Press Photos general jury. "The take away message is to just think of the things you want to do and do them. Get started and built up a bank of images, and at that point people will back you.

"Not all of the pictures [that won awards] were published - a lot were unpublished. It’s not a rule I made but it’s a rule I’m in favour of. A story being published doesn’t necessarily mean any validation other than that one editor thought it was worth publishing, and so many vague elements go into that."