Sony World Photography Awards 2009

-- Collaboration with The Prince's Rainforests Project

-- Environment is central theme of this year's awards

-- Student programme to span six continents

A major new initiative, in association with The Prince's Rainforests Project (PRP), was announced on Monday 22 September, at the launch of the second annual Sony World Photography Awards 2009 -- a truly global competition which honours both professional and amateur photographers.

Speakers at the launch at the Seippel Gallery in Cologne included Scott Gray, Managing Director of the Sony World Photography Awards; James Kennedy, General Manager of Marketing Communications at Sony Europe; Vanessa Winship, winner of the 2008 I'iris d'or; and Briony Mathieson from The Prince's Rainforest Project. Also speaking were Ruth Eichhorn, Director of Photography, GEO Magazine and photographer and President of Magnum Photos, Stuart Franklin.

In addition to the 12 categories for professional photographers and the nine categories for amateurs, the Sony World Photography Awards are delighted to announce the partnership with The Prince's Rainforests for the PRP Awards which complements this year's theme of the environment.

Professional photographers will be submitting their portfolios in the hope of being selected for a fully-funded project to document the rainforest regions of the world. Amateur photographers will also be invited to submit their images for a global awareness campaign, using photography to educate and inform.

Also new to this year's awards:

--  An extended university programme which has grown from 10 universities
    in Europe in the inaugural year of the awards to 60 universities across six
    continents. The brief for this year's student competition is to produce one
    image which highlights a single environmental issue specific to their
    country.

--  The Festival @ The Sony World Photography Awards: a week-long festival
    of photography that takes place throughout the city of Cannes. Through
    talks, seminars, screenings, networking events, book signings and many
    other programmes and events, The World Photography Awards have created a
    programme for the photographic community to participate and network
    through. The Festival @ SWPA is also creating a new annual cultural event
    for the general public and all who enjoy contemporary art.

--  A new category list for professional photographers spreading across
    the three photographic genres -- photojournalism and documentary,
    commercial and fine art.

--  The introduction of the Sony Campaign Award for amateur photographers,
    which joins together a global obsession for football with the enthusiasm
    and passion of photography. Amateur photographers are invited to enter the
    Campaign Award with a single image that captures the beauty and spirit of
    football in unexpected places, with the winner having the chance of being
    one of the photographers used in Sony's forthcoming digital imaging 2009
    campaign work.

--  A global touring exhibition -- Discovering a World of Images --
    showcasing images by the 2008 winners and finalists which through the
    course of a year will visit Belgium, Cologne, Tokyo, Delhi, New York,
    Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Melbourne.
    

The Sony World Photography Awards welcome submissions from every corner of the world. Last year -- the first year of the awards -- over 70,000 entries were received from 178 countries. For both professional and amateur photographers, the categories cover a broad range of subjects from photojournalism to sport, architecture to fashion, offering an all-encompassing competition for the photographic world.

Now, in just their second year, the awards have grown to become much more than an awards programme. It is a mix of festival events, exhibitions, award schemes and student programmes throughout the year. In April 2009 the WPA will host Festival @ The Sony World Photography Awards, a week-long celebration of photography at the Palais des Festival in Cannes attended by some of the most influential names in the photography industry from around the world. The highlight of the week is the awards ceremony gala dinner when the winners in all the categories will be honoured and the Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year will be announced.

Through its many initiatives, the Sony World Photography Awards aim to unite the international photographic community.

Vanessa Winship, winner of the 2008 I'iris d'or comments: "In its inaugural year, Sony World Photography Awards have provided an opportunity for me to have had my work judged by some of the photographers whose own work I most respect and admire. In an industry as competitive as my own I was delighted to have been singled out with this series of portraits. I am not a new photographer, but this award has certainly assisted in allowing new audiences to see my work, an important and necessary aspect to anyone working in a visual medium."

World Photographic Academy

The awards are judged by the World Photographic Academy which today comprises close to 100 of the world's leading photographers including Elliott Erwitt, Mary-Ellen Mark, Susan Meiselas, Bruce Davidson and Tom Stoddart; gallery owners; picture agencies; international Guilds; picture editors; critics and publishers. Their role is to promote excellence in photography and set the standard for award selections.

Key dates

2008

22 September    Professional and amateur categories open for submissions
9 October       Global tour opens in Tokyo
31 October      Student Focus participating universities announced
25 November     WPA Judges announced
2 December      Global tour opens in New York
31 December     Closing date for professional and amateur categories

2009

24 February     Amateur and professional awards shortlist announcement
3 March         Student Focus winners announcement
17 March        Amateur and professional winners announcement
14-19 April     Festival @ The Sony World Photography Awards --
                 exhibitions and events in Cannes
16 April        Sony World Photography Awards gala evening and ceremony

www.worldphotographyawards.org

Notes to editors

-- The Sony World Photography Awards (WPA), launched in 2007, lend a global platform for the photographic industry and community. Through a variety of international programmes including a week-long photography festival, an online magazine, a gallery, an international student programme and a touring exhibition, the WPA continually discovers new talent and creates avenues through which to reward photographers with the support and expertise of industry professionals.

-- Scott Gray, Managing Director of the WPA, is available for interview.

-- The WPA website -- www.worldphotographyawards.org -- now features an online magazine and gallery. It also includes comprehensive information about the awards, the categories, a current list of World Photographic Academy members, and key dates.

-- Images from the 2008 awards are available via the website's press centre.

-- The l'iris d'or in 2008 was awarded to Vanessa Winship.

-- About Sony:

Sony manufactures audio, video, communications and information technology products for the global consumer and professional markets. With its music, pictures, game and online businesses, Sony is uniquely positioned to be one of the world's leading digital entertainment brands. Sony recorded consolidated global annual sales of EUR 55.44 billion (yen 8,871 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008, based on an average market exchange rate for the same period of yen 160.0 to the EUR. It employs approximately 180,500 people worldwide.

In Europe, the Sony Group recorded consolidated annual sales of EUR 12.73 billion (yen 2,328 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008. Sony Europe, headquartered at the Sony Center am Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, is responsible for the company's European electronics business and registered consolidated sales of EUR 9.55 billion for the same period.

For more information on Sony Europe, please visit http://www.sony-europe.com and http://www.sony.eu/presscenter.

-- About the Prince's Rainforests Project

While some rainforest nations are already working to reduce deforestation, developing countries cannot solve the problems alone as it is the demand from the developed world for products such as palm oil, beef and soya that is driving deforestation. Many organizations are working to find ways to address the problem and to pay the rainforest nations for the vital services which they provide. PRP intends to act as a bridge to facilitate dialogue between these interests and to identify and develop practical solutions.

PRP's objectives are to find a way to:

--  Establish true economic values for the services provided by the
    rainforests;
--  Identify possible sources of finance to pay for those services; and
--  Develop efficient and equitable transfer mechanisms, alongside the
    necessary technical and institutional capabilities that may be required, to
    ensure that the funds aimed at conserving rainforests also contribute to
    improving local people's livelihoods in the long-term.
    

PRP is being assisted by a Steering Group comprising business leaders from Barclays, BSkyB, Climate Exchange Plc, Deutsche Bank, Finsbury, Goldman Sachs, KPMG, McDonald's, Man Group plc, Morgan Stanley, Rio Tinto, Shell, Sun Media Group as well as key figures from the World Bank, Coalition for Rainforest Nations and the Global Canopy programme.

For more information please contact Briony Mathieson, Prince's Rainforests Project, tel: 020 7024 5678 or Dr Arlo Brady Freud Communications, tel: 020 3003 6433.

The Awards

Professional Awards

For professional photographers there is a total of 12 category awards and The I'iris d'or which is awarded to the overall winner -- the Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of the Year.

The 12 categories in the three genres are:

Photojournalism and Documentary --

Current affairs; Sport; Contemporary issues; Arts and entertainment

Commercial Photography --

Advertising; Fashion; Music

Fine Art photography --

Portraiture; Conceptual and Constructed; Natural History; Landscape; Architecture

Amateur Awards

The WPA welcomes submissions from amateur photographers across the globe for the eight categories via the WPA website.

The eight categories are: Architecture; Conceptual and Constructed; Fashion; Landscape; Music; Natural History; Portraiture; Sport

The Sony Campaign Award, which has been introduced this year, looks for images that transcend beyond the standard snapshot of an action moment and capture the vibrancy, the magic, the celebration, the camaraderie and the cultural phenomenon that is football.

An exhibition of the finalists' work -- in both the professional and amateur categories -- will be held at the Palais des Festival in Cannes from 14-18 April 2009

The Prince's Rainforests Project Awards

The WPA has created The PRP Award in association with the Prince's Rainforests Project and Sony.

There will be two categories for the PRP Award; professional and amateur. The winner of the best professional photograph award will receive funding to photograph the rainforest regions of the world, and the impacts of deforestation. The resulting images will be exhibited globally, and will form part of a book highlighting the plight of the world's rainforests.

A selection of the best images by amateur photographers will be displayed in Cannes during the Sony World Photography Awards and these images will be used by The Prince's Rainforests Project on various initiatives throughout the year to help communicate this important message.

James Heneage, Communications Director for The Prince's Rainforests Project commented, "This award, and the resulting images, will help to focus global attention on the fact that stopping tropical deforestation is one of most effective ways of slowing climate change."

Student Focus

Building on the successes of the inaugural year, the WPA will invite students from 10 universities across six continents -- North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia -- to compete in Student Focus, the Awards' university programme.

Following a judging process, two students from one university in each continent will win an expenses-paid trip to Cannes with their tutor where they will compete in a final assignment. Winning images will be exhibited at the Palais des Festival in Cannes next April. When presented together, the photographs are expected to create an international collective view of our planet as seen by a new generation of photographers.

The overall winner in the student competition will be awarded approximately 45,000 Euros' worth of Sony photographic equipment for their university.

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