Sony World Photography Awards 2016, Somerset House

Dusty white rhinos, water polo games, victims of FGM, selfies on Mars, enchanted Bamboo forests. The Sony World Photography Awards is the largest and most diverse photography competition in the world.

This is a celebration of the medium in all its glory; from serious conflict photojournalism to the surreal and downright comedic. Give yourself an afternoon to spend at Somerset House to soak up all that the awards have to offer.

Look out for Asghar Khamseh's devastating pictures of acid-attack victims in Iran, Fire of Hatred. Khamseh's images, which earned him Photographer of the Year, are so effective because they are portraits, as opposed to documentary or medical photographs. The effect is that, despite the truly upsetting injuries, we still have a sense of the personality they are meant to disguise. This, in some sense, negates the cruel and cowardly attack.


© Maroesjka Lavigne

The prize for Outstanding Contribution to Photography went to a Chinese and Japanese couple, RongRong and inri for their promotion of contemporary photography in China.

But our favourite image in the show, if it's possible to choose from the wealth on display, was Kei Nomiyama's Enchanted Bamboo Forest, which won the low light category (top picture). At the beginning of every rainy season, at twilight, fireflies string Japan's forests with lights. Kei Nomiyama's startling photograph, taken by a little moonlight, is nothing short of a fairytale.