Sony World Competition: The year's most riveting landscape and architecture photography
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 architecture and landscape categories.
Tornado Alley is situated across the central United States of America and can produce some of the wildest weather on the planet. Supercells traverse Tornado Alley during spring and summer, bringing breathtaking scenes as Mother Nature creates unbelievable atmospheric sculptures. The 2025 season was one of the most intense in memory, as several extremely photogenic storms took place. (Photo: David Baxter III, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)
Tornado Alley is situated across the central United States of America and can produce some of the wildest weather on the planet. Supercells traverse Tornado Alley during spring and summer, bringing breathtaking scenes as Mother Nature creates unbelievable atmospheric sculptures. The 2025 season was one of the most intense in memory, as several extremely photogenic storms took place. (Photo: David Baxter III, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) The state of Earth’s cryosphere is critical. Anthropogenic activities drive climate change and glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate. For the 2025 International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, an expedition set out to photograph an eclipse above the Leones Glacier in Chile, using drone-mounted aerial lights to visually link the Sun’s influence with the loss of glaciers. The Leones Glacier is retreating rapidly. As the glacier thins, unsupported valley walls collapse, covering the surface in dark debris that increases thermal absorption, accelerating melt and driving further instability. (Photo: Liam Man, United Kingdom, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) The state of Earth’s cryosphere is critical. Anthropogenic activities drive climate change and glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate. (Photo: Liam Man, United Kingdom, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Mountain Roads is a series of photopolymer etchings of iconic European mountain roads. This ongoing project aims to document the greatest cycling roads spanning the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Dolomites, the Picos and the Spanish Islands. It celebrates the permanence of mountains and the feats of engineering and construction required to navigate and build a route through and over these formidable climbs. (Photo: Michael Blann, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of the Mountain Roads series by Michael Blann. (Photo: Michael Blann, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) This series draws inspiration from Scandinavian folk tales based on the story Bergtagen, which can be translated to Taken by the Mountain. The photographer explains that nature can be both alluring and overpowering; a place where humans can lose control and merge with something greater than themselves. The images explore enigmatic places that guide the viewer through light in the forest. The photographer’s ambition was not to capture the landscape as it is, but to convey the mystery of nature as she experienced it. The haunted imagery reflects a fleeting initial access to nature, before it draws you in with its tangle of plants, mycelium and soil. (Photo: Nathalie Ericson, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards) Another image drawing inspiration from Scandinavian folk tales based on the story Bergtagen, which can be translated to Taken by the Mountain. (Photo: Nathalie Ericson, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards) ‘The individual works in this series are alluring collages that seduce our visual and art historical memory, creating time jumps and exploring new combinations of different genres.’ The photographer explains that the pictures move along the border of photography and painting, presenting nature as seen through the spectacles of our cultural history. The landscape becomes the stage and a storyteller of our existence, yet within the work there is a fragility on display, and it is the viewer’s task to protect it. ‘Sometimes the silence of the sea is lightly broken through a ship, a ghost ship full of stories. Another time the sun seems to draw a trace in dots to the sky.’ (Photo: Peter Franck, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another collage by Peter Franck. (Photo: Peter Franck, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) After five days of unprecedented wildfires in the summer of 2025, the Corbières massif in France became a vast landscape of scorched earth. Although the photographer has been living in Japan for 20 years, he originates from this region and returned to photograph what remained of a forest reduced to ash. Influenced by the minimalism of early Japanese black-and-white prints, he employed a paper filter over the camera lens and worked at night under artificial lighting. The resulting images blur the perception of reality, the photographer explains, creating a purity of form that resonates with a deep sense of devastation. (Photo: Florian Ruiz, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another work by Florian Ruiz. (Photo: Florian Ruiz, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Frozen World was photographed on the last day that the Icelandic Highlands were open, before heavy snowfall closed the area for the season. The images reveal the black volcanic desert covered by the first frost, which forms sharp, graphic patterns on the dark sand. The contrast flattens depth and scale, transforming the landscape into abstract, near-two-dimensional shapes, like surfaces from another planet. It is a fleeting moment between autumn and winter, frozen in time. (Photo: Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) A part of the Frozen World series of the Icelandic Highlands. (Photo: Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) This series is a tribute to the moment when light and earth meet at their most dramatic point. Exploring the Argentine and Chilean Patagonia region during autumn, the photographer sought to capture the last glow of a season that transforms the landscape into a stage of fire and stone. The photographer explains that through these images, the borders between nations disappear, revealing a geographical unity created by the crimson hues of beech trees and the golden light caressing the peaks of the Andes. It is a record of silence, of waiting, and of the beauty of a cycle fading before the arrival of the winter snows. (Photo: Daniel Clavería, Chile, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of the series paying tribute to the moment when light and earth meet at their most dramatic point. (Photo: Daniel Clavería, Chile, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) This series of abstract landscapes depicts oyster farming on the French coast of Normandy and Brittany, where the farms stretch along the entire coastline, shaping the character of the landscape. With a tidal range of up to 12 metres, the oyster beds disappear from view at high tide but are fully exposed at low tide. Yet it is only from a bird's-eye view that the vastness of these abstract landscapes, reminiscent of Roman legions, can be appreciated. (Photo: Andreas Secci, Germany, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) A work in the series of abstract landscapes depicting oyster farming on the French coast of Normandy and Brittany. (Photo: Andreas Secci, Germany, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Stemming from the photographer's personal archive, this series employs hand-printed and collaged colour negatives that are reconfigured into abstracted landscape representations. Purposefully undisclosed locations — sites that may otherwise be loaded with personal and political connotations — are collaged and repurposed, transforming them into spaces of greater universality. Alluding to idealised and utopian spaces, these staged landscapes reference the histories of photography, from Pictorialist combination printing processes to contemporary discourse, conflating the ‘real’ and the imaginary. In doing so, the work embodies a plurality of viewpoints, playfully defying photographic traditions and Western pictorial conventions that embody singular, fixed and idealised views. (Photo: Dafna Talmor, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another piece using hand-printed and collaged colour negatives that are reconfigured into abstracted landscape representations. (Photo: Dafna Talmor, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Recycling old building materials is a sustainable way to build small holiday homes. Wood, bricks and window frames from demolished buildings are given a new lease of life, reducing construction waste and the need for new resources. Such reuse not only creates a unique, charming building, but also contributes to environmental protection. (Photo: Stephan Zirwes, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of the photographs capturing the recycling of old building materials to build small holiday homes. (Photo: Stephan Zirwes, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Kabe (Japanese for ‘wall’) examines the transformed landscape of Japan's northeast coast following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. After the devastating waves crested over Tarō’s historic 10-metre-high ‘Great Wall’, the Japanese government launched a decade-long project to construct reinforced barriers equipped with massive, automated gates and integrated viewing windows — a ‘Tsunami Shield’ designed to withstand the immense pressure of floodwaters. This series documents openings in the walls that serve as the final point of contact between land and sea, revealing how they have irrevocably altered the natural horizon. While these barriers provide essential protection for future generations, they have physically and spiritually distanced communities from the ocean that sustains their livelihoods. These openings and gateways stand as silent witnesses to this separation, illustrating the physical and emotional barriers that remain in the ongoing process of reconstruction. (Photo: Peter Lipton, Netherlands, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another image examining the transformed landscape of Japan's northeast coast following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. (Photo: Peter Lipton, Netherlands, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) On 5 January 1979, Raffaele Cutolo, the leader of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO) criminal organisation, gathered criminal leadership at the Hotel Florio to establish the NCO’s territorial control over Puglia, Italy. The hotel hosted the summit like an important political gathering, as new hierarchies and rules were established to govern the region outside state authority. The hotel still stands between Foggia and San Severo, but all that remains of this architectural witness is empty rooms and halls, silent corridors, a drained pool and a weed-engulfed pine forest. (Photo: Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another photo by Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni. (Photo: Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) The Mausoleum of Martyrdom of Polish Villages in Michniów was created in 2009 by a team led by Mirosław Nizio. The sculptural form of the mausoleum is an architectural memorial to the pacifications that took place in Michniów and other Polish villages in 1943, during World War II. The structure’s monolithic body is open to nature, the sky and the landscape, changing sometimes abruptly with the weather, as light reaches the interior through cracks between the segments. (Photo: Tomasz Kawecki, Poland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another image capturing the Mausoleum of Martyrdom of Polish Villages in Michniów. (Photo: Tomasz Kawecki, Poland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Shot at night in Sendai, Japan, this series looks at districts built almost entirely for service: shops, offices, car parks, truck fleets, an amusement park, a petrol station. All were photographed after the last of the day’s workers had left, using only the available light. The photographer was drawn to how these banal structures, which are almost invisible during the day, become theatrical once night falls and the human flow stops. The architecture, machinery and a few lit windows seem to act by themselves, leaving only quiet traces of people and a soft, almost post-apocalyptic. (Photo: Mathieu Moindron, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Many of the watchtowers in Jiangmen, in China’s Guangdong Province, were built during the time of the Republic of China (1912–1949), as public refuges and defensive fortresses. Most were constructed by Chinese people living overseas, who had returned to their home towns, or raised funds to build them in the countryside, making them a unique architectural form that combines both Chinese and Western influences. In 2007, the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages in Guangdong were officially designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Photo: Chen Liang, China Mainland, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another image of a watchtower in Jiangmen, in China’s Guangdong Province. (Photo: Chen Liang, China Mainland, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) By day, the border wall separating Mexico from the USA looms large, imposing its size, but at night, beneath the stars, it transforms. Harder to see, yet no less present. The photographer explains ‘it becomes a silhouette, a shadow, a dark line of architectural hostility that cuts through the landscape and the silence. The wall rusts, becomes buried, and is interrupted, but its purpose endures: to separate. The photographer notes that ‘this series is not about politics, but about presence. It is about an architecture designed to exclude.’ (Photo: Cristopher Rogel Blanquet Chavez, Mexico, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another photo of the border wall separating Mexico from the USA at night. (Photo: Cristopher Rogel Blanquet Chavez, Mexico, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) This ongoing project documents small neighbourhood grocery stores on the outskirts of Curitiba, in southern Brazil. These modest structures form an architecture of resistance that persists even as large retail chains reshape the city. Often family-run and linked to domestic spaces, the stores merge work, memory and dwelling into a single building. While the city centre undergoes gentrification, the periphery remains culturally dense and visually vibrant. This series reflects a belief that architectural beauty exists in ordinary, overlooked places. (Photo: André Tezza, Brazil, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another piece in André Tezza's project documenting small neighbourhood grocery stores on the outskirts of Curitiba, in southern Brazil. (Photo: André Tezza, Brazil, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Homes of Haor documents the vernacular architecture of Ashtagram, Kishoreganj, in Bangladesh’s Haor region. Here, homes are built on naturally raised mounds that become islands during the monsoon, surrounded by seasonal floodwater, and boats become the primary means of travel. From above, the settlements form distinct patterns shaped by elevation, water and function. Elevated roads, clustered dwellings, and carefully arranged livestock spaces reveal how rural communities design and adapt their built environment to a landscape defined by water. (Photo: Joy Saha, Bangladesh, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Part of Homes of Haor series, documenting the vernacular architecture of Ashtagram, Kishoreganj, in Bangladesh’s Haor region. (Photo: Joy Saha, Bangladesh, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) This series explores a part of Iran’s historical architectural heritage; a land where, over centuries, patterns of settlement, public spaces, and structures have shaped the experience of living and the understanding of space. These buildings are the product of accumulated knowledge, emerging from the climate, local materials, and cultural life, and reflect a carefully measured relationship between humans and the land. Within them, function, structure, and meaning coexist in balance. The photographer notes that documenting these historic buildings ‘is a form of responsibility, in a country continuously experiencing hardship and sorrow.’ They still stand, ‘a resilient presence in the landscape of the present.’ This series is an effort to observe, read, and record this continuity: ‘to show that architecture can remain a living memory and a narrator of identity, even in challenging times.’ (Photo: Farshid Rahimi Kalahroudi, Iran, Islamic Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026) Another photo exploring part of Iran’s historical architectural heritage. (Photo: Farshid Rahimi Kalahroudi, Iran, Islamic Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)
/file/attachments/orphans/3909_10585_DavidBaxterIII_UnitedStates_Professional_Landscape_2026_376400.jpg "Tornado Alley is situated across the central United States of America and can produce some of the wildest weather on the planet. Supercells traverse Tornado Alley during spring and summer, bringing breathtaking scenes as Mother Nature creates unbelievable atmospheric sculptures. The 2025 season was one of the most intense in memory, as several extremely photogenic storms took place. (Photo: David Baxter III, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3927_10711_LiamMan_UnitedKingdom_Professional_Landscape_2026_652084.jpg "The state of Earth’s cryosphere is critical. Anthropogenic activities drive climate change and glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate. For the 2025 International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, an expedition set out to photograph an eclipse above the Leones Glacier in Chile, using drone-mounted aerial lights to visually link the Sun’s influence with the loss of glaciers. The Leones Glacier is retreating rapidly. As the glacier thins, unsupported valley walls collapse, covering the surface in dark debris that increases thermal absorption, accelerating melt and driving further instability. (Photo: Liam Man, United Kingdom, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3927_10709_LiamMan_UnitedKingdom_Professional_Landscape_2026_250299.jpg "The state of Earth’s cryosphere is critical. Anthropogenic activities drive climate change and glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate. (Photo: Liam Man, United Kingdom, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3917_10635_MichaelBlann_UnitedKingdom_Professional_Landscape_2026_495832.jpg "Mountain Roads is a series of photopolymer etchings of iconic European mountain roads. This ongoing project aims to document the greatest cycling roads spanning the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Dolomites, the Picos and the Spanish Islands. It celebrates the permanence of mountains and the feats of engineering and construction required to navigate and build a route through and over these formidable climbs. (Photo: Michael Blann, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3917_10641_MichaelBlann_UnitedKingdom_Professional_Landscape_2026_828566.jpg "Part of the Mountain Roads series by Michael Blann. (Photo: Michael Blann, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3919_10653_NathalieEricson_Sweden_Professional_Landscape_2026_211525.jpg "This series draws inspiration from Scandinavian folk tales based on the story Bergtagen, which can be translated to Taken by the Mountain. The photographer explains that nature can be both alluring and overpowering; a place where humans can lose control and merge with something greater than themselves. The images explore enigmatic places that guide the viewer through light in the forest. The photographer’s ambition was not to capture the landscape as it is, but to convey the mystery of nature as she experienced it. The haunted imagery reflects a fleeting initial access to nature, before it draws you in with its tangle of plants, mycelium and soil. (Photo: Nathalie Ericson, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3919_10657_NathalieEricson_Sweden_Professional_Landscape_2026_576944.jpg "Another image drawing inspiration from Scandinavian folk tales based on the story Bergtagen, which can be translated to Taken by the Mountain. (Photo: Nathalie Ericson, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3921_10667_PeterFranck_Germany_Professional_Landscape_2026_241226.jpg "‘The individual works in this series are alluring collages that seduce our visual and art historical memory, creating time jumps and exploring new combinations of different genres.’ The photographer explains that the pictures move along the border of photography and painting, presenting nature as seen through the spectacles of our cultural history. The landscape becomes the stage and a storyteller of our existence, yet within the work there is a fragility on display, and it is the viewer’s task to protect it. ‘Sometimes the silence of the sea is lightly broken through a ship, a ghost ship full of stories. Another time the sun seems to draw a trace in dots to the sky.’ (Photo: Peter Franck, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3921_10677_PeterFranck_Germany_Professional_Landscape_2026_214645.jpg "Another collage by Peter Franck. (Photo: Peter Franck, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3923_10685_FlorianRuiz_Japan_Professional_Landscape_2026_735022.jpg "After five days of unprecedented wildfires in the summer of 2025, the Corbières massif in France became a vast landscape of scorched earth. Although the photographer has been living in Japan for 20 years, he originates from this region and returned to photograph what remained of a forest reduced to ash. Influenced by the minimalism of early Japanese black-and-white prints, he employed a paper filter over the camera lens and worked at night under artificial lighting. The resulting images blur the perception of reality, the photographer explains, creating a purity of form that resonates with a deep sense of devastation. (Photo: Florian Ruiz, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3923_10691_FlorianRuiz_Japan_Professional_Landscape_2026_487623.jpg "Another work by Florian Ruiz. (Photo: Florian Ruiz, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3925_10695_JuliaMustonen-Dahlkvist_Sweden_Professional_Landscape_2026_366431.jpg "Frozen World was photographed on the last day that the Icelandic Highlands were open, before heavy snowfall closed the area for the season. The images reveal the black volcanic desert covered by the first frost, which forms sharp, graphic patterns on the dark sand. The contrast flattens depth and scale, transforming the landscape into abstract, near-two-dimensional shapes, like surfaces from another planet. It is a fleeting moment between autumn and winter, frozen in time. (Photo: Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3925_10703_JuliaMustonen-Dahlkvist_Sweden_Professional_Landscape_2026_466500.jpg "A part of the Frozen World series of the Icelandic Highlands. (Photo: Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist, Sweden, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3915_10627_DanielClavera_Chile_Professional_Landscape_2026_345732.jpg "This series is a tribute to the moment when light and earth meet at their most dramatic point. Exploring the Argentine and Chilean Patagonia region during autumn, the photographer sought to capture the last glow of a season that transforms the landscape into a stage of fire and stone. The photographer explains that through these images, the borders between nations disappear, revealing a geographical unity created by the crimson hues of beech trees and the golden light caressing the peaks of the Andes. It is a record of silence, of waiting, and of the beauty of a cycle fading before the arrival of the winter snows. (Photo: Daniel Clavería, Chile, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3915_10623_DanielClavera_Chile_Professional_Landscape_2026_641973.jpg "Part of the series paying tribute to the moment when light and earth meet at their most dramatic point. (Photo: Daniel Clavería, Chile, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3913_10617_AndreasSecci_Germany_Professional_Landscape_2026_542964.jpg "This series of abstract landscapes depicts oyster farming on the French coast of Normandy and Brittany, where the farms stretch along the entire coastline, shaping the character of the landscape. With a tidal range of up to 12 metres, the oyster beds disappear from view at high tide but are fully exposed at low tide. Yet it is only from a bird's-eye view that the vastness of these abstract landscapes, reminiscent of Roman legions, can be appreciated. (Photo: Andreas Secci, Germany, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3913_10607_AndreasSecci_Germany_Professional_Landscape_2026_576227.jpg "A work in the series of abstract landscapes depicting oyster farming on the French coast of Normandy and Brittany. (Photo: Andreas Secci, Germany, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3911_10603_DafnaTalmor_UnitedKingdom_Professional_Landscape_2026_516456.jpg "Stemming from the photographer's personal archive, this series employs hand-printed and collaged colour negatives that are reconfigured into abstracted landscape representations. Purposefully undisclosed locations — sites that may otherwise be loaded with personal and political connotations — are collaged and repurposed, transforming them into spaces of greater universality. Alluding to idealised and utopian spaces, these staged landscapes reference the histories of photography, from Pictorialist combination printing processes to contemporary discourse, conflating the ‘real’ and the imaginary. In doing so, the work embodies a plurality of viewpoints, playfully defying photographic traditions and Western pictorial conventions that embody singular, fixed and idealised views. (Photo: Dafna Talmor, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3911_10595_DafnaTalmor_UnitedKingdom_Professional_Landscape_2026_192814.jpg "Another piece using hand-printed and collaged colour negatives that are reconfigured into abstracted landscape representations. (Photo: Dafna Talmor, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3847_10113_StephanZirwes_Germany_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_494795.jpg "Recycling old building materials is a sustainable way to build small holiday homes. Wood, bricks and window frames from demolished buildings are given a new lease of life, reducing construction waste and the need for new resources. Such reuse not only creates a unique, charming building, but also contributes to environmental protection. (Photo: Stephan Zirwes, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3847_10107_StephanZirwes_Germany_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_986596.jpg "Part of the photographs capturing the recycling of old building materials to build small holiday homes. (Photo: Stephan Zirwes, Germany, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3845_10101_PeterLipton_Netherlands_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_532844.jpg "Kabe (Japanese for ‘wall’) examines the transformed landscape of Japan's northeast coast following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. After the devastating waves crested over Tarō’s historic 10-metre-high ‘Great Wall’, the Japanese government launched a decade-long project to construct reinforced barriers equipped with massive, automated gates and integrated viewing windows — a ‘Tsunami Shield’ designed to withstand the immense pressure of floodwaters. This series documents openings in the walls that serve as the final point of contact between land and sea, revealing how they have irrevocably altered the natural horizon. While these barriers provide essential protection for future generations, they have physically and spiritually distanced communities from the ocean that sustains their livelihoods. These openings and gateways stand as silent witnesses to this separation, illustrating the physical and emotional barriers that remain in the ongoing process of reconstruction. (Photo: Peter Lipton, Netherlands, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3845_10093_PeterLipton_Netherlands_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_160977.jpg "Another image examining the transformed landscape of Japan's northeast coast following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. (Photo: Peter Lipton, Netherlands, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3843_10089_Jean-MarcCaimiValentinaPiccinni_Italy_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_680751.jpg "On 5 January 1979, Raffaele Cutolo, the leader of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata (NCO) criminal organisation, gathered criminal leadership at the Hotel Florio to establish the NCO’s territorial control over Puglia, Italy. The hotel hosted the summit like an important political gathering, as new hierarchies and rules were established to govern the region outside state authority. The hotel still stands between Foggia and San Severo, but all that remains of this architectural witness is empty rooms and halls, silent corridors, a drained pool and a weed-engulfed pine forest. (Photo: Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3843_10081_Jean-MarcCaimiValentinaPiccinni_Italy_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_904692.jpg "Another photo by Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni. (Photo: Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Italy, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3841_10067_TomaszKawecki_Poland_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_724012.jpg "The Mausoleum of Martyrdom of Polish Villages in Michniów was created in 2009 by a team led by Mirosław Nizio. The sculptural form of the mausoleum is an architectural memorial to the pacifications that took place in Michniów and other Polish villages in 1943, during World War II. The structure’s monolithic body is open to nature, the sky and the landscape, changing sometimes abruptly with the weather, as light reaches the interior through cracks between the segments. (Photo: Tomasz Kawecki, Poland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3841_10065_TomaszKawecki_Poland_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_228196.jpg "Another image capturing the Mausoleum of Martyrdom of Polish Villages in Michniów. (Photo: Tomasz Kawecki, Poland, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3839_10059_MathieuMoindron_Japan_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_974191.jpg "Shot at night in Sendai, Japan, this series looks at districts built almost entirely for service: shops, offices, car parks, truck fleets, an amusement park, a petrol station. All were photographed after the last of the day’s workers had left, using only the available light. The photographer was drawn to how these banal structures, which are almost invisible during the day, become theatrical once night falls and the human flow stops. The architecture, machinery and a few lit windows seem to act by themselves, leaving only quiet traces of people and a soft, almost post-apocalyptic. (Photo: Mathieu Moindron, France, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3837_10039_ChenLiang_ChinaMainland_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_404588.jpg "Many of the watchtowers in Jiangmen, in China’s Guangdong Province, were built during the time of the Republic of China (1912–1949), as public refuges and defensive fortresses. Most were constructed by Chinese people living overseas, who had returned to their home towns, or raised funds to build them in the countryside, making them a unique architectural form that combines both Chinese and Western influences. In 2007, the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages in Guangdong were officially designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Photo: Chen Liang, China Mainland, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3837_10035_ChenLiang_ChinaMainland_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_555452.jpg "Another image of a watchtower in Jiangmen, in China’s Guangdong Province. (Photo: Chen Liang, China Mainland, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3835_10029_CristopherRogelBlanquetChavez_Mexico_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_592014.jpg "By day, the border wall separating Mexico from the USA looms large, imposing its size, but at night, beneath the stars, it transforms. Harder to see, yet no less present. The photographer explains ‘it becomes a silhouette, a shadow, a dark line of architectural hostility that cuts through the landscape and the silence. The wall rusts, becomes buried, and is interrupted, but its purpose endures: to separate. The photographer notes that ‘this series is not about politics, but about presence. It is about an architecture designed to exclude.’ (Photo: Cristopher Rogel Blanquet Chavez, Mexico, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3835_10021_CristopherRogelBlanquetChavez_Mexico_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_624584.jpg "Another photo of the border wall separating Mexico from the USA at night. (Photo: Cristopher Rogel Blanquet Chavez, Mexico, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3833_10011_AndrTezza_Brazil_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_790263.jpg "This ongoing project documents small neighbourhood grocery stores on the outskirts of Curitiba, in southern Brazil. These modest structures form an architecture of resistance that persists even as large retail chains reshape the city. Often family-run and linked to domestic spaces, the stores merge work, memory and dwelling into a single building. While the city centre undergoes gentrification, the periphery remains culturally dense and visually vibrant. This series reflects a belief that architectural beauty exists in ordinary, overlooked places. (Photo: André Tezza, Brazil, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3833_10009_AndrTezza_Brazil_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_866213.jpg "Another piece in André Tezza's project documenting small neighbourhood grocery stores on the outskirts of Curitiba, in southern Brazil. (Photo: André Tezza, Brazil, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3831_10003_JoySaha_Bangladesh_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_168685.jpg "Homes of Haor documents the vernacular architecture of Ashtagram, Kishoreganj, in Bangladesh’s Haor region. Here, homes are built on naturally raised mounds that become islands during the monsoon, surrounded by seasonal floodwater, and boats become the primary means of travel. From above, the settlements form distinct patterns shaped by elevation, water and function. Elevated roads, clustered dwellings, and carefully arranged livestock spaces reveal how rural communities design and adapt their built environment to a landscape defined by water. (Photo: Joy Saha, Bangladesh, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3831_9997_JoySaha_Bangladesh_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_360321.jpg "Part of Homes of Haor series, documenting the vernacular architecture of Ashtagram, Kishoreganj, in Bangladesh’s Haor region. (Photo: Joy Saha, Bangladesh, Finalist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3829_9989_FarshidRahimiKalahroudi_IranIslamicRepublicOf_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_949286.jpg "This series explores a part of Iran’s historical architectural heritage; a land where, over centuries, patterns of settlement, public spaces, and structures have shaped the experience of living and the understanding of space. These buildings are the product of accumulated knowledge, emerging from the climate, local materials, and cultural life, and reflect a carefully measured relationship between humans and the land. Within them, function, structure, and meaning coexist in balance. The photographer notes that documenting these historic buildings ‘is a form of responsibility, in a country continuously experiencing hardship and sorrow.’ They still stand, ‘a resilient presence in the landscape of the present.’ This series is an effort to observe, read, and record this continuity: ‘to show that architecture can remain a living memory and a narrator of identity, even in challenging times.’ (Photo: Farshid Rahimi Kalahroudi, Iran, Islamic Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
/file/attachments/orphans/3829_9985_FarshidRahimiKalahroudi_IranIslamicRepublicOf_Professional_ArchitectureDesign_2026_672978.jpg "Another photo exploring part of Iran’s historical architectural heritage. (Photo: Farshid Rahimi Kalahroudi, Iran, Islamic Republic Of, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Architecture & Design, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)")
Tornado Alley is situated across the central United States of America and can produce some of the wildest weather on the planet. Supercells traverse Tornado Alley during spring and summer, bringing breathtaking scenes as Mother Nature creates unbelievable atmospheric sculptures. The 2025 season was one of the most intense in memory, as several extremely photogenic storms took place. (Photo: David Baxter III, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2026)