The Sony World Photography Awards has announced the jury and London exhibition dates for its 2027 edition, and it’s a landmark one: the 20th edition of one of the biggest and most respected photography competitions in the world. If you’ve ever thought about entering, this is the year to do it. Details are on the World Photography Organisation site.
Why this competition is worth your time
The Sony World Photography Awards is free to enter, open worldwide, and genuinely one of the few competitions where an unknown photographer can be catapulted into the spotlight overnight. It runs across multiple sections, Professional, Open, Student and Youth, so it caters for everyone from working professionals to complete beginners, and the Open competition in particular is aimed squarely at enthusiasts with a single standout image.
That breadth is the point. You don’t need a body of work or a client list to enter the Open or Youth categories, just one strong photograph, which makes this one of the most accessible major awards there is. For the students and hobbyist photographers a lot of us teach, it’s exactly the kind of competition worth pointing them towards.
The 20th edition
Reaching a 20th edition is a milestone, and the awards have grown into a genuine global institution over that time, receiving hundreds of thousands of entries from well over a hundred countries each year. The winning and shortlisted images are exhibited at Somerset House in London, one of the best photography exhibitions in the calendar, and the shows travel internationally afterwards.
Alongside the exhibition dates, the organisers have named the jury who’ll select the 2027 winners, a panel drawn from across the photography industry. Anonymous, expert judging is a large part of why the results carry weight, and why an image wins on its merits rather than on the name attached to it.
Worth knowing
If you’re thinking of entering, the key thing is simply to do it, the barrier is low and the potential reward is high. The Professional competition asks for a series rather than a single image, so it’s the more demanding route, while the Open rewards a single exceptional frame. The Student and Youth competitions are free routes in for anyone in education.
We’ll be following the 2027 awards through to the winners’ announcement and the Somerset House exhibition. In the meantime, if you’ve got a photograph you’re proud of sitting on a hard drive, this is the nudge to enter it.
Sony World Photography Awards 2027: what to know
Edition: the 20th edition of the Sony World Photography Awards, organised by the World Photography Organisation. Competitions: Professional (series), Open (single image), Student and Youth. Cost: free to enter, open worldwide. Judging: by an announced international jury drawn from across the photography industry. Exhibition: winning and shortlisted works shown at Somerset House, London, with dates now confirmed for 2027, before touring internationally. Entry and full details are available via the World Photography Organisation.
