The World Photography Organisation announces the shortlisted photographers in the Student and  Youth  competitions  of  the Sony World Photography Awards 2024. Winners of Student Photographer of the Year and Youth Photographer of the Year will be announced on 18 April and will be on view as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2024 exhibition at Somerset House, London.

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Exhibition: 19 April - 6 May 2024 | Somerset House, London

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Student Competition Shortlist

The Student competition shortlist is a selection of bodies of work by 10 students at leading higher education institutions. This year’s competition invited students to enter a series of five to 10 images in response to the brief Home. The shortlisted projects highlight the student photographers’ diverse perspectives on place, community, identity and belonging, showing the nuanced stories and conversations they engage with as they develop their practices.

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Family relationships and personal histories are key themes across a number of the shortlisted series. Brayan Enriquez’s (USA, Georgia State University, Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design) series And Taste the Dirt Below explores the family stories passed down through generations, focusing on Enriquez’s parents’ immigration to the United States from Mexico; Gaoge Ouchen’s (China Mainland, Communication  University  of  Zhejiang)  series  The  Orange  Tree  chronicles  a  return  to  the photographer’s family house during the pandemic after a time away; Kayin Luys’ (Belgium, LUCA School of Arts Sint Lukas, Brussels) project Don’t Trust Pretty Girls is an intimate portrait of his in-laws, celebrating their day-to-day rituals and pastimes.

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The shortlisted photographers also turned their lenses towards community, and the ways one finds a sense of home within a larger group. Chatal Home, by Kazi Arifujjaman (Bangladesh, Counter Foto - a Center for Visual Arts), looks at communal living in a ‘chatal’, a rice processing site where families from around Bangladesh reside and work together; in Ihubo Ikhaya (A hymn, a home), Makaziwe Radebe (South Africa, Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town) reminisces about memories of Emdeni, Soweto, recalling time spent with neighbours, friends and family; meanwhile in Horses and Caravans, Frederik Rüegger (Germany, Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie) captures the customs and traditions of English and Irish traveller communities, focusing on the annual celebrations held at the Ballinasloe and Appleby horse fairs.

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Elsewhere, the shortlisted photographers looked at how introspection allows one to find a sense of home. Yufei Ma’s (China Mainland, School of Visual Art, USA) Intermission contemplates the moments of tranquillity that punctuate daily life through a series of still-lifes of linens and garments drying in the sun. Siphosethu Sanelisiwe Sikhosana’s (South Africa, University of Pretoria) project Resting in Unfamiliar Places traces Sikhosana’s changing relationship to religion and sexuality in a series of artfully crafted pinhole camera self-portraits.

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Also included in the shortlist are projects exploring the challenges of making a home in precarious conditions.  In  Lake  Poopó’s  Disappearance:  The  Uru Community’s Tale of Resilience, Gaston Zilberman (Argentina, Motivarte) examines how climate change has altered the lifestyle and culture of the Uru community as their natural resources become scarce. Juan David Aguirre’s (Colombia, Universidad EAFIT) poignant black-and-white series No Home No Future documents ways of living in the Andes tenement in Medellin, where homeless people take shelter.

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The winner of Student Photographer of the Year 2024 will be selected from the 10 students and announced at the Sony World Photography Awards 2024 ceremony in London on 18 April. The overall winning university will receive Sony digital imaging equipment worth €30,000.

This year’s Student Competition shortlist was judged by Ravi Ghosh, Deputy Editor at The British Journal of Photography.

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Youth Competition Shortlist

The Youth competition shortlist comprises the works of 10 photographers aged 19 and under. For the 2024 competition, entrants were invited to respond to the brief Through Your Eyes.

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A number of the shortlisted photographers reflected on their personal experiences of the natural world and environment. River Lewis-Gosch (USA, 15 years old) caught the first moments of a severe wildfire in the North Cascades National Park in Washington, just as the firefighting helicopters began to arrive; while Kas Christiaens’ (Belgium, 19 years old) striking night-time image depicts light pollution in rural Belgium, revealing how street lights have impacted the clarity of the night sky. Sebastián Fernández Lora (Spain, 15 years old) succeeded in capturing a photograph of comet C/2023 P1 (Nishimura), which was visible from Spain in September 2023; and Daniel Murray (UK, 15 years old) turns his camera to a lone surfer on an empty beach, meditating upon the scenery of the Cornish seaside.

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The shortlisted photographers also explored questions of identity and individuality in their work. Shayna Cuenca (USA, 15 years old) created a stylised self-portrait using a cut printed image, and tea bags; while Joyce Xu (Australia, 18 years old) took a studio self-portrait in a moment of reflection. Across the shortlist, photographers demonstrated creative approaches to composition as they documented their surroundings. Zy Grei Zander M. Esperanza’s (Philippines, 16 years old) image of a flying flock of doves highlights their motion through intentional camera movement techniques. Elsewhere Chengchen Wang (China Mainland, 18 years old) captured the snow-covered peaks of Yala Mountain, glowing in the late-evening light; Afiq Sharkawi (Malaysia, 18 years old) portrayed a craftsman in the workshop, making a traditional weapon known as a ‘keris’; and Isaac Friend (UK, 18 years old) took a dramatic photograph of rock formations against the backdrop of a clouded sky and distant ocean waves.

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Youth Photographer of the Year is judged by Daniel Blochwitz, Curator of the Foto Festival Lenzburg, Switzerland. The winner will receive a range of Sony digital imaging equipment to nurture their vision.

The overall winners in the Student, Youth, Open and Professional competitions of the Sony World Photography Awards 2024 will be announced on 18 April 2024. For more information about upcoming announcements and winners please visit www.worldphoto.org.