Sony World Photography Awards are the world’s biggest photography competition, organised by World Photography Organisation (WPO). Three Pakistani photographers have been shortlisted for what is considered a photographer’s dream. Photographs taken by Kumail Rizvi, Shahzad Khan and Zohaib Tariq were listed among the top ten of their respective youth award categories.
Sony’s World Photography Awards take place every year. They comprise of Open, Professional and Youth competitions with each one further distributed into photo categories. This year, a record breaking 230,103 entries were made from contestants belonging to 186 countries. A separate statement by the awards committee mentioned that a massive increase in entries, over 137 percent, was seen from Pakistan.
The Youth Competition is limited to photographers aged below 19 years of age. Kumail Rizvi’s photograph, named “Human Made Environment”, of an aerial view of a car park in Malaysia was shortlisted from the Youth Environment category.
Image: Kumail Rizvi’s Photograph titled “Human Made Environment”
Shahzad Khan, who is a resident of Islamabad, took a stunning close-up photo of child on the outskirts of the city. His photograph, named “Awal Gul”, was shortlisted in the Youth Portraits category.
Image: Shahzad Khan’s photograph titled “Awal Gul”
Zohaib Tariq, another Islamabad resident and a student at HITEC University Taxila, captured an image showing local farmers herding their animals. His photo titled “Pakistan” was selected in the Youth Culture category.
Image: Zubair Tariq’s photograph titled “Pakistan”
The winners from each category will be announced on the following dates:
- Tuesday, 15th March: National Awards winners
- Tuesday, 29th March: Open & Youth winners
- Thursday, 21st April: Photographer of the Year; Overall Open, Youth and Professional category winners
- Friday 22nd April to 8th May 2016: Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition will take place at Somerset House, London
The judges, who are leaders from the photography industry, will finalise 1 Youth Photographer of the Year, 1 winner per category and shortlist 10 photographs per category.
The Youth Photographer of 2016 will get a share in $30,000 prize and will be flown to the Awards Exhibition in London. Each category winner will be given a free Sony Product and their photographs will be published in the winners’ book and the online exhibition.
