The winners, which were announced at the Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan today, will now have nine months to produce a personal project.

"Every year, we find the quality of the winners' projects going up," says Aidan Sullivan, vice president of Getty Images, in an exclusive interview with BJP ahead of the announcement. "Of course, we're delighted to see two of our own in there, but you have to remember that this is an anonymous contest and the judges are completely independent from Getty Images. They look for quality in the proposals." Astrada and Ybarra Zavala are both Getty Images photographers.

The five photographers, who also spoke with BJP ahead of today's announcement, will now receive $10,000 each to start the production of their winning project, with the remaining $10,000 coming at completion. Over the next three days, BJP will published a series of interviews with the winners.

Greene won the award for his project The E-Waste Trail. "This photographic documentary tracks the afterlife of our electronic trash, as corporations and governments make irresponsible, yet lucrative, deals, at enormous injury to the world's most vulnerable citizens," he explains. Read more about Stanley Greene's work and take on film photography here.

Astrada, who won BJP's International Photography Award two years ago, will use the $20,000 to continue his work on violence against women, with a new chapter focussing on Norway. "The grant will allow me to document how the violence against women is affecting women living in Norway, one of the wealthiest and safest countries in the world," he says. "From 2000 to 2010, 83 women were murdered by their partner or ex-partner, and in 2008 more than 25,000 women were in contact with shelters. Every year more than 3000 women have to spend the night in these shelters, as well as more than 2000 children."

Hingley will follow the Jones family, which is made up of two parents and seven children. "The Jones family lives in a three-bedroom council house in the industrial city of Wolverhampton, UK," she says. "This is the first house that the family has lived in for three generations; the mother and father were brought up in caravans, as were their parents. The house is precious to the family and holds many memories for them, to the point that despite its extremely limited size they refuse to move into larger council accommodation. The three boys and four girls have high aspirations for their future but they are aware it will be financially difficult for them to leave the family home."

Bardeletti will use his grant to document the lives of gay Ugandans as the country is about to discuss the "Kill the Gays" bill, which makes it a crime, punishable by death, to be gay or to be HIV positive. "Uganda is today at the frontline of the effort by extremist Christian churches to spread across Africa draconian measures against Gays and Lesbians," he says. "During a gathering in Kampala in 2010, American evangelical pastor Lou Engle stated ‘in America, we have lost the battle, but in Uganda, this is ground zero'."

Finally, Ybarra Zavala will continue covering the civil war and the impact it has had on Columbia in recent years. "While covering this war I have learnt that its ups and downs are simple variations that are caused by the strategic and economic interests that are driving it," he says in his project statement. "These ups and downs sometimes catch the attention of the media, but they are a very long way from the ideological values that caused the conflict. Talking now about armed groups on the left or the right is mistaken."

He adds: "Drug trafficking, African palm oil, water and now the CO2 emissions market all drive this conflict. The control of land is a sure investment for any armed group. Regions such as Nariño, Arauca, Choco, Cauca, Caquetá or el Putumayo are the settings for total war."

This year's judges were Tom Stoddart, Visa Pour l'Image's director Jean-Francois Leroy, Jon Jones of The Sunday Times Magazine, Emanuela Mirabelli of Marie Claire Italy, and Cyril Drouhet of Le Figaro Magazine.

For more information, visit gettyimages.com.