- The
Overall Winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2025
were announced tonight at a special gala ceremony in
London - Zed Nelson receives
prestigious Photographer of the
Year
title - Susan Meiselas honoured as
the 2025 Outstanding Contribution to
Photography - 10 Professional
category winners additionally
announced
LONDON, 16 APRIL
2025, 22:00 BST – The Sony World Photography Awards
announced today the overall winners of its 18th edition at a
special gala ceremony in London, bringing together leading
figures in the industry to honour this year’s winners and
their achievements.
The prestigious Photographer of
the Year 2025 title was awarded to the acclaimed British
photographer Zed Nelson for the series The Anthropocene
Illusion. Nelson receives a $25,000 (USD) cash prize, a
range of Sony digital imaging equipment, and the opportunity
to present an additional body of work at the Sony World
Photography Awards 2026 exhibition.
Nelson was
selected from the 10 Professional competition category
winners, who were announced at today’s ceremony, alongside
the 2nd and 3rd place finalists in each category. The
evening’s programme additionally recognised the overall
winners of the Awards’ Open, Student and Youth
competitions. Also honoured during the course of the evening
was this year’s Outstanding Contribution to
Photography recipient, the acclaimed documentary
photographer Susan Meiselas.
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Over almost two decades,
the Awards have become a definitive annual moment for the
discovery and celebration of contemporary photography. Each
year the Awards celebrate the stories and images that shape
our visual language and capture the imagination, offering a
global perspective on this ever-evolving medium. The Sony
World Photography Awards 2025 exhibition is on display at
Somerset House, London from 17 April – 5 May, presenting
over 300 prints and hundreds of images in digital displays,
as well as a special presentation by Susan
Meiselas.
PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE
YEAR
The Anthropocene Illusion is a
long-term documentary project, spanning six years and four
continents, which explores the deeply fractured relationship
between humans and the natural world. Taking the concept of
the ‘Anthropocene’, a term for the current period in
Earth’s history which is characterised by humans being the
dominant influence on the environment, Nelson’s series
focuses on humanity’s response to its impact on the
planet. The project looks at artificial spaces, created by
humans as a means to ‘experience’ and interact with
nature, from safari parks, nature reserves and resorts, to
natural history museums, zoos and green cities. Nelson uses
these constructions as a lens through which to explore the
dissonance between the human desire to stay connected to
nature, and the continuous environmental destruction caused
by human activity.
Commenting on his win, Zed Nelson
says: ‘I’m very honoured for my work to be recognised by
the Sony World Photography Awards. Over the last six years,
I have explored how we immerse ourselves in choreographed
and simulated environments to mask our destructive impact on
the natural world – we have become masters of a
stage-managed, artificial ‘experience’ of nature.
Projects such as this take extensive research and a very
long time to complete – the recognition of this Award really
helps to now get the work out into the world and to be able
to tell this vital story.’
