Sony World Competition: Photography capturing the spectrum of human experiences and cultures
The Sony World Competition announced the finalists and shortlists for their 2026 professional awards. The Awards spotlights photographers telling the stories of our time. Here is the selection of images from the professional competition in the documentary category.
Mthwalume Brass Band is a vibrant pillar of community spirit in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. (Photo: Sandile Ndlovu, South Africa, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)
With more than 35 active members, Mthwalume Brass Band is a vibrant pillar of community spirit in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The band is dedicated to nurturing young talent and through its uplifting performances and varied repertoire it instils a passion for music and actively engages its members in positive activities. Faced with limited resources and societal challenges, Mthwalume Brass Band focuses on equipping young musicians with vital skills, empowering them to navigate issues including drug and alcohol use, and bullying. Their ongoing journey is a testament to resilience and the transformative power of music. (Photo: Sandile Ndlovu, South Africa, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Since declaring independence in 1973, Guinea‑Bissau has faced chronic poverty, political instability, and weak institutions. Nearly 65 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, chronic malnutrition affects more than 28 per cent of children, and infant and maternal mortality are among the highest in the world. Only around 28 per cent of children complete primary school, while agriculture, dominated by cashew nuts, is highly vulnerable to climate change. This series documents the state of stagnation in a country that has recently marked 50 years of independence, yet remains trapped in a state of limbo. (Photo: Mário Cruz, Portugal, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of the series documenting the state of stagnation in Guinea-Bissau, a country that has recently marked 50 years of independence, yet remains trapped in a state of limbo. (Photo: Mário Cruz, Portugal, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Following the Seoul Fortress Plan of the late 1960s, extensive barriers were constructed in South Korea to halt a North Korean armoured advance, expanding through the late Cold War. Landmines were widely deployed to block infiltration, forming what was believed to be an impassable ‘no man’s land’. While researching various collapses and fatal explosions, the photographer recognised a contradiction; he explains that ‘past security logic endangers the present’. Leaving military school, he began constructing a photographic cartography of these Cold War peripheries, and traced the river systems of the Han, Imjin, and Hantan Rivers, areas where lost landmines remain buried, moving upstream through the Western and Central Fronts to photograph the anti-tank obstacles and minefields that remain. (Photo: Ye Hyun Kim, Korea, Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of Ye Hyun Kim's photographic cartography of Cold War peripheries in South Korea. (Photo: Ye Hyun Kim, Korea, Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) What Blossoms Beneath the Earth is a documentary and symbolic photographic project that focuses on the LGBTIQ+ community living in the mining regions of southern Venezuela. The photographer explains that against this deeply masculine backdrop, ‘where the harshness of labour and territorial control impose silence, this project explores identity, resistance, and visibility’. Through interventions on images, portraits and symbolic objects, the work transforms documentary photography into a gesture, where gold and flowers become symbols of dignity, identity and rebirth, emerging from the violence and rigidity of the territory. (Photo: Yris Pablo, Venezuela, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of What Blossoms Beneath the Earth documentary project about the LGBTIQ+ community living in the mining regions of southern Venezuela. (Photo: Yris Pablo, Venezuela, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Strange Love challenges the conventional narrative of ‘natural enemies, of East versus West’, offering a striking visual exploration of life in post-industrial Russia and the USA. By revealing unexpected similarities between the two nations, the work engages and disorients the viewer, forcing them to question old assumptions and rethink geopolitical divides. In doing so, a fundamental question is raised: Are the subjects’ lives really all that different? Can we, at times, even distinguish between them in a set of photographs? And how often do we get it wrong? This leads to a reasonable — and some may say contentious — proposition: If it’s hard to tell the difference, what is the difference? (Photo: Seamus Murphy, Ireland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) An image in the series Strange Love that challenges the conventional narrative of ‘natural enemies, of East versus West’. (Photo: Seamus Murphy, Ireland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026 Walking through the narrow alleys of Sichuan and Chongqing in China, the photographer often encounters what they describe as a ‘unique urban texture: a peculiar ability to distil the grand, sometimes even surreal sense of collectivism into the most mundane locations.’ This collectivism is not necessarily the product of formal organisation, but a deep-seated habit of existence that is manifested in the ubiquitous act of ‘gathering around a single table.’ Here, collectivism provides a sense of security — a form of ‘social Zen’ that blends ‘the bitterness and the magic of life into the sound of shuffling tiles and casual greetings.’ (Photo: Dong Wei, China Mainland, Commended, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards) Another photo from Dong Wei who captures collectivism as a form of ‘social Zen’. (Photo: Dong Wei, China Mainland, Commended, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards) Restitution explores the journey of African masks between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Belgium, from their original use to their display in museums. By combining archives, contemporary scenes and performances, the series questions colonial legacies, institutional narratives, and the issues surrounding restitution. Between Kinshasa and Brussels, the images reveal the tensions between memory, power, and perception, and question what it means today to exhibit, move, or reactivate these objects steeped in history. (Photo: Colin Delfosse, Belgium, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of Restitution, a project that explores the journey of African masks between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Belgium, from their original use to their display in museums. (Photo: Colin Delfosse, Belgium, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Since 2021, Anne Mocaër has been photographing a neighbourhood in Casablanca that has been condemned by the Avenue Royale redevelopment project. Declared uninhabitable, the area faces demolition, reportedly displacing more thousands of households in the process. Rather than documenting ruin, the series focuses on those who refuse to disappear before leaving. Through portraits and daily gestures, men and women hold on, ‘between two worlds, two times, two roofs.’ Between walls standing and walls fallen, dignity persists and beauty emerges in light, posture, and a steady gaze. (Photo: Anne Mocaër, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another image from a neighbourhood in Casablanca that has been condemned by the Avenue Royale redevelopment project. (Photo: Anne Mocaër, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) In the southern Colombian department of Putumayo, coca cultivation remains one of the few economic options for rural families in this neglected border region. This project follows farmers and families whose livelihoods depend on an illicit economy shaped by poverty, weak state presence, and armed control, as well as members of Comandos de la Frontera, the armed group that controls the territory and the cocaine trade. While some families try legal alternatives, coca often provides the only stable income. Under the Shadow of Coca shows that many of the local producers are not traffickers, but campesinos (farmers), and that it is usually armed groups who profit from the trade of coca. (Photo: Santiago Mesa, Colombia, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of the project following farmers and families whose livelihoods depend on an illicit economy shaped by poverty, weak state presence, and armed control in southern Colombia. (Photo: Santiago Mesa, Colombia, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Over a period of eight months, Alexandre Bagdassarian documented the daily lives of young detainees in one of France’s six juvenile prisons, one of the country’s least visible institutions. The photographer sought to understand what it means to be young and confronted with prison, not from the perspective of legal texts or institutional discourse, but by observing the trajectories, voices, and bodies of those living this reality. Often relegated to silence or the margins, their stories are rarely told, and when they are, they reach us through a media or political lens, the photographer explains, sometimes ‘shaped by security driven ideologies.’ (Photo: Alexandre Bagdassarian, France, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another photo by Alexandre Bagdassarian documenting the daily lives of young detainees in one of France’s six juvenile prisons. (Photo: Alexandre Bagdassarian, France, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)
/file/attachments/orphans/3859_10203_SandileNdlovu_SouthAfrica_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_378212.jpg "With more than 35 active members, Mthwalume Brass Band is a vibrant pillar of community spirit in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The band is dedicated to nurturing young talent and through its uplifting performances and varied repertoire it instils a passion for music and actively engages its members in positive activities. Faced with limited resources and societal challenges, Mthwalume Brass Band focuses on equipping young musicians with vital skills, empowering them to navigate issues including drug and alcohol use, and bullying. Their ongoing journey is a testament to resilience and the transformative power of music. (Photo: Sandile Ndlovu, South Africa, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3867_10275_MrioCruz_Portugal_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_136540.jpg "Since declaring independence in 1973, Guinea‑Bissau has faced chronic poverty, political instability, and weak institutions. Nearly 65 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, chronic malnutrition affects more than 28 per cent of children, and infant and maternal mortality are among the highest in the world. Only around 28 per cent of children complete primary school, while agriculture, dominated by cashew nuts, is highly vulnerable to climate change. This series documents the state of stagnation in a country that has recently marked 50 years of independence, yet remains trapped in a state of limbo. (Photo: Mário Cruz, Portugal, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3867_10263_MrioCruz_Portugal_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_378886.jpg "Part of the series documenting the state of stagnation in Guinea-Bissau, a country that has recently marked 50 years of independence, yet remains trapped in a state of limbo. (Photo: Mário Cruz, Portugal, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3865_10255_YeHyunKim_KoreaRepublicOf_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_744942.jpg "Following the Seoul Fortress Plan of the late 1960s, extensive barriers were constructed in South Korea to halt a North Korean armoured advance, expanding through the late Cold War. Landmines were widely deployed to block infiltration, forming what was believed to be an impassable ‘no man’s land’. While researching various collapses and fatal explosions, the photographer recognised a contradiction; he explains that ‘past security logic endangers the present’. Leaving military school, he began constructing a photographic cartography of these Cold War peripheries, and traced the river systems of the Han, Imjin, and Hantan Rivers, areas where lost landmines remain buried, moving upstream through the Western and Central Fronts to photograph the anti-tank obstacles and minefields that remain. (Photo: Ye Hyun Kim, Korea, Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3865_10253_YeHyunKim_KoreaRepublicOf_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_485019.jpg "Part of Ye Hyun Kim's photographic cartography of Cold War peripheries in South Korea. (Photo: Ye Hyun Kim, Korea, Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3863_10239_YrisPablo_Venezuela_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_491282.jpg "What Blossoms Beneath the Earth is a documentary and symbolic photographic project that focuses on the LGBTIQ+ community living in the mining regions of southern Venezuela. The photographer explains that against this deeply masculine backdrop, ‘where the harshness of labour and territorial control impose silence, this project explores identity, resistance, and visibility’. Through interventions on images, portraits and symbolic objects, the work transforms documentary photography into a gesture, where gold and flowers become symbols of dignity, identity and rebirth, emerging from the violence and rigidity of the territory. (Photo: Yris Pablo, Venezuela, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3863_10235_YrisPablo_Venezuela_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_525380.jpg "Part of What Blossoms Beneath the Earth documentary project about the LGBTIQ+ community living in the mining regions of southern Venezuela. (Photo: Yris Pablo, Venezuela, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3861_10231_SeamusMurphy_UnitedKingdom_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_525438.jpg "Strange Love challenges the conventional narrative of ‘natural enemies, of East versus West’, offering a striking visual exploration of life in post-industrial Russia and the USA. By revealing unexpected similarities between the two nations, the work engages and disorients the viewer, forcing them to question old assumptions and rethink geopolitical divides. In doing so, a fundamental question is raised: Are the subjects’ lives really all that different? Can we, at times, even distinguish between them in a set of photographs? And how often do we get it wrong? This leads to a reasonable — and some may say contentious — proposition: If it’s hard to tell the difference, what is the difference? (Photo: Seamus Murphy, Ireland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3861_10229_SeamusMurphy_UnitedKingdom_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_572461.jpg "An image in the series Strange Love that challenges the conventional narrative of ‘natural enemies, of East versus West’. (Photo: Seamus Murphy, Ireland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026")
/file/attachments/orphans/3857_10193_DongWei_ChinaMainland_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_531197.jpg "Walking through the narrow alleys of Sichuan and Chongqing in China, the photographer often encounters what they describe as a ‘unique urban texture: a peculiar ability to distil the grand, sometimes even surreal sense of collectivism into the most mundane locations.’ This collectivism is not necessarily the product of formal organisation, but a deep-seated habit of existence that is manifested in the ubiquitous act of ‘gathering around a single table.’ Here, collectivism provides a sense of security — a form of ‘social Zen’ that blends ‘the bitterness and the magic of life into the sound of shuffling tiles and casual greetings.’ (Photo: Dong Wei, China Mainland, Commended, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3857_10191_DongWei_ChinaMainland_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_891138.jpg "Another photo from Dong Wei who captures collectivism as a form of ‘social Zen’. (Photo: Dong Wei, China Mainland, Commended, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3855_10173_ColinDelfosse_Belgium_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_681084.jpg "Restitution explores the journey of African masks between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Belgium, from their original use to their display in museums. By combining archives, contemporary scenes and performances, the series questions colonial legacies, institutional narratives, and the issues surrounding restitution. Between Kinshasa and Brussels, the images reveal the tensions between memory, power, and perception, and question what it means today to exhibit, move, or reactivate these objects steeped in history. (Photo: Colin Delfosse, Belgium, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3855_10169_ColinDelfosse_Belgium_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_921161.jpg "Part of Restitution, a project that explores the journey of African masks between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Belgium, from their original use to their display in museums. (Photo: Colin Delfosse, Belgium, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3853_10167_AnneMocar_France_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_628005.jpg "Since 2021, Anne Mocaër has been photographing a neighbourhood in Casablanca that has been condemned by the Avenue Royale redevelopment project. Declared uninhabitable, the area faces demolition, reportedly displacing more thousands of households in the process. Rather than documenting ruin, the series focuses on those who refuse to disappear before leaving. Through portraits and daily gestures, men and women hold on, ‘between two worlds, two times, two roofs.’ Between walls standing and walls fallen, dignity persists and beauty emerges in light, posture, and a steady gaze. (Photo: Anne Mocaër, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3853_10155_AnneMocar_France_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_821872.jpg "Another image from a neighbourhood in Casablanca that has been condemned by the Avenue Royale redevelopment project. (Photo: Anne Mocaër, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3851_10143_SantiagoMesa_Colombia_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_904979.jpg "In the southern Colombian department of Putumayo, coca cultivation remains one of the few economic options for rural families in this neglected border region. This project follows farmers and families whose livelihoods depend on an illicit economy shaped by poverty, weak state presence, and armed control, as well as members of Comandos de la Frontera, the armed group that controls the territory and the cocaine trade. While some families try legal alternatives, coca often provides the only stable income. Under the Shadow of Coca shows that many of the local producers are not traffickers, but campesinos (farmers), and that it is usually armed groups who profit from the trade of coca. (Photo: Santiago Mesa, Colombia, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3851_10139_SantiagoMesa_Colombia_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_347354.jpg "Part of the project following farmers and families whose livelihoods depend on an illicit economy shaped by poverty, weak state presence, and armed control in southern Colombia. (Photo: Santiago Mesa, Colombia, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3849_10133_AlexandreBagdassarian_France_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_138886.jpg "Over a period of eight months, Alexandre Bagdassarian documented the daily lives of young detainees in one of France’s six juvenile prisons, one of the country’s least visible institutions. The photographer sought to understand what it means to be young and confronted with prison, not from the perspective of legal texts or institutional discourse, but by observing the trajectories, voices, and bodies of those living this reality. Often relegated to silence or the margins, their stories are rarely told, and when they are, they reach us through a media or political lens, the photographer explains, sometimes ‘shaped by security driven ideologies.’ (Photo: Alexandre Bagdassarian, France, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3849_10121_AlexandreBagdassarian_France_Professional_DocumentaryProjects_2026_226567.jpg "Another photo by Alexandre Bagdassarian documenting the daily lives of young detainees in one of France’s six juvenile prisons. (Photo: Alexandre Bagdassarian, France, Finalist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
Mthwalume Brass Band is a vibrant pillar of community spirit in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. (Photo: Sandile Ndlovu, South Africa, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Documentary Projects, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)