SWPA: Mexican indigenous Citlali Fabián is photographer of the year

Now in their 19th year, the Sony World Photography Awards are the benchmark for international photography; a must-see event on the world's cultural calendar, continuing to discover and celebrate the photographers who shape the way we look at the world. Over 430,000 images from more than 200 countries and territories were submitted in this year's competitions. The Sony World Photography Awards 2026 exhibition runs at Somerset House in London from 17 April to 4 May and features over 300 prints and hundreds of images on digital screens, as well as a special exhibition by Joel Meyerowitz.

Other prize-winners in the Architecture and Design section included the work of Joy Saha (Bangladesh), entitled Homes of Haor, which admirably documents the effects of climate change on the architecture of Ashtagram and Kishoreganj in Bangladesh: her work is truly remarkable!

The Documentary Project section, on the other hand, crowned what, in the writer's opinion, was the most significant series, not only for the scope of the storytelling - which, without any accompanying tears, and in the wake of a more than consolidated tradition - brought out with adamantine clarity the unspoken reality of the coca growers, in particular those in the rural district of Putumayo, in southern Colombia, for whom this activity continues to be, if not the only one, the only one economically capable of sustaining them. Santiago Mesa, with his seriesUnder the Shadow of Coca has particularly followed the activities of these peasants and families whose livelihoods depend on this illicit economy shaped by poverty, as well as the activities of members of the armed group 'Comandos de la frontera', who control the territory and the coca trade. Despite the attempt of some families to undertake alternative cultivation, this illicit reality remains the only real source of livelihood for these communities, whose members are not traffickers but simple campesinos, heirs to an agricultural tradition that provides them with a marginal survival income, while it is the armed groups who are the real traffickers to whom the profits from the illegal activity go. His are photos without any need for sophistry or commentary: sharp images, documenting a dark reality that the media overlooks and the mainstream culpably ignores.

In the Perspectives section, South Korea's Seungho Kim triumphed with his images at the height of a child and a dog. His A Portrait of the Most Average K-Parenting Today tells the story of how in a Korea with a very low birth rate it is dogs, especially small dogs, that form the core of many families. With this series, the photographer places children and small dogs at the same height, highlighting the surreal of a world that betrays their real expectations and needs, while transcribing in the background the loneliness of most in a complex society where children are now a rarity.

Finally, another of the award-winning works really deserves to be commended: the Italians Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni won in the Portraiture section with their series The Faithful. Their representation of faith, shown through the images of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, on the days of commemoration of the death of Pope Francis and while waiting for the new pontiff, are a remarkable example of how an act of witnessing one's faith also necessarily takes on the typical connotations of a 'staging' on a global media stage such as that of the churchyard of the Caput Mundi Church. The rosaries, clasped between joined hands and absorbed gazes, are the vehicle of a creed that is made explicit in a densely theatrical rituality.

Finally, the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award went to Joel Meyerowitz: there are no comments to make here, his iconic photos deserve silence, because they tell and fix moments of the world forever.

Sony World Photography Awards 2026, London, Somerset House, until 4 May