Architecture

David IbernÛn Boria, Spain, Professional Shortlist, Architecture, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
The Niemeyer Cultural Center is the latest work by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and built in Avilés, Spain. Three buildings make up a unique space which is predominantly white so characteristic of this architect.

Simon Norfolk, UK, Professional Shortlist, Architecture, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
The Architecture of Kabul 10 years after the Evasion

Igor Chirikov, Russia, Professional Shortlist, Architecture, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
Two colossal factory pipes were recently the highest buildings in Moscow, competing even with the Ostankino television tower and the famous Moscow skyscrapers. This is the architecture that we do not notice or try to ignore, but which could not help shaping our perception of the city ...


Portraiture

Irina Werning, Argentina, Professional Shortlist, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
I love old photos. I admit being a nosey photographer. As soon as I step into someone else’s house, I start sniffing for them. Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today... One day, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future.

Paolo Marchetti, Italy, Professional Shortlist, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
Central America is the growing phenomenon of so-called Pandillas, gangs formed by young people aged 13 to 25 who often use as references ideological myths criminals proposed by movies and television, following in the footsteps of fact peddling, robbing and killing very often. The phenomenon of urban gangs is quite young, and sees its humble beginnings in the 80 '. In the 70 it already had forms of youth violence, but it was an institutionalized violence, based on ideologies and scenarios predominantly rural. Up to 90 years' 29% of all homicides recorded in Latin America were committed by young people aged between 10 and 19 years, while 34% were made by young people between 20 and 29 years and still, according to statistical data from 2000 to 2005, more than 43% of male detainees accused of murder, were young people between 18 and 25 years. Violence is a prominent element in the functioning of all the Central American companies and other companies in the world.

100 Portraits of World Political VIPs Made of Network Photos
100 Portraits of World Political VIPs Made of Network Photos
Lei Liu, China, Professional Shortlist, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
In current era when visual transmission prevails, the Internet is the platform with the most audience. Through the Internet, we can see numerous pictures and receive the information provided by them. As the ordinary people, maybe we have never accessed the facts behind the pictures and can only be directed by the pictures to imagine the facts and believe what they tell is true. In this course, we are controlled by some power the disseminators have and can not notice this. I have never seen the world political VIPs with my own eyes. However, I can imagine what they look like. Despite that they are not the direct disseminators of their own pictures, the transmission system controlled by the disseminators due to the political needs exerts visual control over us. When I doubt this, I use the photos of the world political VIPs on the Internet to make their portraits with Photoshop skills. Instead of creating facts, this is to express the existence of doubt and revolt.


Landscape

Moving Forward, Stand Still- Queens Edition
Moving Forward, Stand Still- Queens Edition
Rona Chang, US, Professional Shortlist, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2012

the Impressions of fine-art in Xiapu
the Impressions of fine-art in Xiapu
Lee Chee Wai, Malaysia, Professional Shortlist, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
Capturing the moment of sea farming activities in and around Xiapu - the mudflats sea farming villages located at the North East of Fujian province, China. It has a long coastal line of 404km, with large portion of sea shore protected by mountain and rock, making it perfect for the fishers and sea farming activities.

Mitch Dobrowner, USA, Professional Shortlist, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
Words are inadequate to describe the experience of photographing this immense power and beauty, And the most exciting part is with each trip I really don’t know what to expect. But today I see these storms as living, breathing things. They are born when the conditions are right, they gain strength as they grow, they fight against their environment to stay alive, they change form as they age, and eventually they die. They take on so many different aspects, personalities and faces. My only hope is that my images can do justice to these amazing phenomena of nature.


Still life

Fra serien Still Life in the Zone
Fra serien Still Life in the Zone
Rena Effendi, Azerbaijan, Professional Shortlist, Still Life, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
Twenty-five years since the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe of April 26, 1986, approximately 230 people still inhabit the restricted area of 30 km in radius, now named the Zone of Alienation. Inside the Zone, the residents are mostly elderly women, who just days after the worst nuclear accident in the world’s history, chose to return home. Today the women live alone, harvesting radioactively contaminated food, eating meat of the deer hunted in the forbidden forests of the Zone and collecting berries that are known to absorb radiation. Focusing on still life - be it victuals or relics of the disaster, the purpose of these series is to tell a story of Chernobyl’s extraordinary women, their persistent survival in the place of danger.

Fra serien Last Meal
Fra serien Last Meal
Helen Thompson, UK, Professional Shortlist, Still Life, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
This series depicts Death row prisoner's last meals. The project was a collaboration with graphic designer, Matt Prosser, who used the images to illustrate a mock-up book on the subject. The crime committed by each prisoner was printed on one side of the book, the image on the other, juxtaposing text with image.

Knight Paintings
Knight Paintings
Renan Cepeda, Brazil, Professional Shortlist, Still Life, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
Light painting technique was used with old fashioned cameras (rolleiflex 6x6 and Linhof 4x5 in) and tungsten torchs to shot ancian castles at the region of Castilla y Leon, Spain. I intend to carry on photographing at night for the rest of my life. This is a mysterious and undiscovered world where the Earth and things get a new dimension in the absence of light as they are confronted against the infinite firmament. During the day the light is excessive, saturated and too easy to record. Recording the light on what is visible to the naked eye no longer offers me a challenge. It is banal. On the contrary, my interest is to be a spectator to what the lens, the film and the long exposition to the tenuous light can offer me as a surprise, with that childish emotion of receiving the films back from the photo lab as if they were Santa Klaus gifts. In this job of mine done in the darkness the Unexpected is my coauthor.


Conceptual

The Afronauts series 10
The Afronauts series 10
Cristina De Middel, Spain, Professional Shortlist, Conceptual, Sony World Photography Awards 2012

Open Secrets
Open Secrets
Luis Mallo, United States, Professional Shortlist, Conceptual, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
Images from storage rooms in major Art Museums.

Choreography of Pictorial Fetishes
Choreography of Pictorial Fetishes
Manuel Geerinck, US, Professional Shortlist, Conceptual, Sony World Photography Awards 2012
In creating photographic images, I am building upon an environment based on the behavior of assemblages in motion. These photographs represent an extension of research that originally was born in more static painting. The intent was to go further, to engage the viewer’s imagination through a less definable interpretation outside of our descriptive world.