The Regional Winners of the 2023 World Press Photography Competition

The Regional Winners of the 2023 World Press Photography Competition

World Press Photo Awards 2023

The annual World Press Photo Contest has announced the regional winners of its 2023 competition. The 24 winners and six honorable mentions use photography to call attention to the world’s major issues in 2022, including war, historic protests, and the global climate crisis.

The 2023 World Press Photo Contest attracted over 60,000 entries from nearly 130 countries. Six regional juries judged the entered photos, with all winners selected by an international jury. The global jury comprised the regional jury chairs, the global jury chair, New York Times photo editor and Diversify Photo co-founder, Brent Lewis.

Joumana El Zein Khoury, the executive director of the World Press Photo Foundation, says, “Selecting these arresting winning images from tens of thousands of entries was a huge task for our independent jurors, all of whom demonstrated profound care, expertise and passion in reaching their decisions, delivering a stunning and globally balanced view of the past year.”

Koury continues, “In a world where dozens of journalists are still killed in the line of duty every year, I could not stop thinking about the journeys and risks these photographers — and often, their subjects — take to bring us these images of our world. I am humbled to present this selection and honored that we will be able to bring the vital stories they tell to millions more people.”

Jury chair Brent Lewis adds, “For me, I was looking for pictures that grab you, and that won’t let go. There are images here that let you understand ‘this could be you’. That I can’t get away from. But they also had to represent the world. We saw powerful stories ranging from the conflict in Ukraine, and Afghanistan’s first year under Taliban rule, to oil spillage in Peru and the loss of women’s rights, from the USA to Iran.”

The six regions are Africa, Asia, Europe, North and Central America, South America, and Southeast Asia and Oceania. Within each region, winners are selected for singles, stories, long-term projects, and open formats. All the winners are featured below, organized by region and category.

Last year marked the first time the World Press Photo organization used the regional model for the competition. The move was to improve representation and ensure that photojournalistic talent around the world was given equal opportunity to shine and be recognized.

Lewis says of the selected winners, “The photographs that we have chosen to represent 2022 are indicative of this moment in time, and will serve as historical documents of what the year was like for future generations to look back on and hopefully learn from. World Press Photo has, throughout my career, served as a guiding force for what is possible with photography, and it has been my greatest honor and privilege to serve as global jury chair, and hopefully to pass that guidance on to a new generation.”

Africa

Singles

Photographer Lee-Ann Olwage of Der Spiegel won this category with the this image titled “The Big Forget.”

World Press Photo Contest 2023
As life expectancy rises, dementia is increasingly becoming a public health and socio-cultural issue in Ghana and across Africa. Lack of public awareness of behavior associated with the condition means that women displaying symptoms are sometimes perceived as witches. In Ghana, they may be sent away to live in so-called “witch camps”. Lee-Ann Olwage’s personal project attempts to bring attention to often overlooked stories about dementia from the African continent.

Stories

Nick Hannes of Panos Pictures won the “Stories” category with a quartet of images about the Egyptian government’s New Administrative Capital (NAC) project east of Cairo.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
In 2015, the Egyptian government began constructing a New Administrative Capital (NAC) in the desert east of Cairo to accommodate ministries, top companies, and relieve chronic congestion and pollution in the city. Modeled on Dubai, this new urban environment will house 6.5 million people. Critics of the project argue that the NAC caters to the privileged minority and serves President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s efforts to consolidate power and establish a legacy. These images constitute part of a larger project on new capitals that addresses notions of labor, neoliberal urban development, and inequality.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Long Term Projects

M’hammed Kilito’s long term project for Visura focuses on the VII Mentor Program in Morocco.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Oases depend on a delicate balance of three elements — abundant water supply, good quality soil, and date palms — to function as islands of biodiversity and barriers against desertification. In Morocco, destructive human activity and global heating are currently disrupting this ecosystem. Roughly two-thirds of Morocco’s oasis habitat has disappeared in the past century due to such factors as steadily rising temperatures, fires, and water scarcity. Oasis degradation in turn impacts inhabitants, causing decreased agricultural production, poverty, and displacement. The jury appreciated the project for its subtle study of a vanishing environment.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Open Format

Mohamed Mahdy’s Open Format project, “Here, The Doors Don’t Know Me,” won this category.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
This web-based project explores the effects of rising seas on the local community in Al Max, a fishing village situated along the Mahmoudiyah canal in Alexandria, Egypt. For generations, its residents have lived and worked on the canal that leads to the Mediterranean Sea. In 2020, the Egyptian government began evicting parts of Al Max and relocating people to housing several kilometers away from the canals, not only demolishing homes, but also endangering the collective memories and local culture embedded in the neighborhood. The stories featured here speak to the precarity of people everywhere striving for recognition amid global economic and environmental upheaval.
World Press Photo Contest 2023
People of the Al Max community speak of love letters or last words found in bottles that would wash on to their shores. For this project, Mohamed Mahdy encouraged residents to write their own letters, building an archive of private memories for future generations. Visitors to the website are also encouraged to send their letters to the residents of Al Max, opening a channel of communication to the world. Utilizing found imagery and the artist’s own photography, Mahdy’s project presents an elegy to a communal way of life on the cusp of disappearing.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Asia

Singles

Maya Levin of the Associated Press won the Asian “Singles” category with her image, “Shireen Abu Akleh’s Funeral.”

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Abu Akleh, a veteran reporter of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, was shot two days earlier while covering an Israeli military raid in Jenin, West Bank. Another journalist was wounded at the scene. After initial denials, the Israeli military has since admitted there was a “high possibility” Abu Akleh was shot by an Israeli soldier.

Stories

Mads Nissen (Politiken/Panos Pictures) took the top award for the image “The Price of Peace in Afghanistan.”

World Press Photo Contest 2023
After the withdrawal of US and allied forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban returned to power. In response, other nations stopped providing foreign aid and froze billions of dollars of government reserves deposited abroad. Intense droughts in 2022 exacerbated the economic crisis; currently half of the country’s population do not have enough to eat and over a million children are severely malnourished according to the UN. This story captures the many difficulties Afghan people face in their daily lives.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Long Term Projects

Four Central Asian countries confronting the climate crisis earned Anush Babajanyan (VII Agency/National Geographic Society) a victory in the “Long Term Projects” category.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Four landlocked Central Asian countries are struggling with the climate crisis and lack of coordination over the water supplies they share. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, upstream on the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, need extra energy in winter. Downstream, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan need water in summer for agriculture. Historically, the countries seasonally traded fossil-fuel energy for water released from upstream dams, but since the fall of the USSR and the rise of privatized industries, this system has become imbalanced. Unsustainable use of water and recent intense droughts compound the challenges.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Open Format

Rounding out the Asian region is photographer Hossein Fatemi’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” “Open Format” entry.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
This photo-based video project narrates one chaotic night in the life of an Iranian nurse as she saves the life of a young protester named Reza. The footage offers a rare glimpse into the dangers faced by protestors on the streets of Iran today, situated in the context of an inciting incident: on 16 September 2022, Mahsa “Jina” Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died after she was arrested by the Islamic Republic’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict rules restricting the dress and conduct of women. The ensuing protests quickly intensified, spreading across the country. The Islamic Republic responded by disrupting internet access and violently repressing uprisings. Because hospitals are controlled by the regime, anyone injured in the protests risks arrest and further abuse upon seeking medical attention.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Europe

Singles

Alkis Konstantinidis of Reuters won with a heartbreaking image of Ukrainian Yana Bachek crying over the body of her father, Victor Gubarev, who was killed while buying bread during the shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on April 18, 2022.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Russian forces began advancing towards Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, just after their full-scale invasion on 24 February. Throughout March and April, the city was partially encircled and remained under heavy shelling. In May, Ukraine forced a Russian withdrawal from the immediate surroundings of Kharkiv. The jury felt this image encapsulated the grief and horror that Ukrainian civilians endure on a daily basis since Russia’s invasion.

Stories

Another photographer’s images of the war in Ukraine was recognized. Evgeniy Maloletka’s series, “The Siege of Mariupol,” shows the devastation of the city by Russian forces.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
When Russian forces invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, they immediately targeted the strategically important port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. By 20 May, Russia gained full control of the city, which had been devastated by shelling, and tens of thousands of civilians had fled or been killed. Maloletka was one of the very few photographers documenting events in Mariupol at that time. The jury felt his story communicated the horror of the war for civilians; they praised the photographer’s resilience while working under immense pressure and imminent threat.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Long Term Projects

Many European companies are working toward a greener future. Simone Tramonte’s long term project “Net-Zero Transition” focuses on new technologies and renewable energies.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Renewable energies, new technologies for food production, and the circular economy can be seen as key directions among European companies seeking a green transition. Human-induced climate change is the largest, most pervasive threat to the natural environment and society that the world has ever experienced, according to the OCHR. This prompted the European Union to establish targets to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 and to reduce them to net-zero by 2050. The photographer documents innovative technologies that offer possible routes to these goals.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Open Format

In the Open Format category, Cesar Dezfuli for De Volkskrant turned his lens toward the influx of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers that have landed on European shores from Africa since 2015.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Since 2015, the influx of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from Africa to Europe has been covered in European news media as either a series of humanitarian crises or as a set of abstract statistics. On 1 August 2016, a boat carrying 118 people was found drifting off the coast of Libya, one of hundreds that required rescue in the past years. What happened to these individuals after their arrival in Europe? The Passengers project, presented as a multimedia website for De Volkskrant, highlights several personal stories from the people who were on that boat in 2016 as they seek to establish new lives across the continent.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

North and Central America

Singles

Between 2019 and 2020, colonies of bees declined by 43.7 percent in the United States. Jonas Kako covered the story for Panos Pictures.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
A substantial decrease in flow of the Colorado River, caused by lack of rain and increasing demand for water upstream, now requires these workers to provide water for the bees in troughs. Heat and drought weakens bees, making them more susceptible to pathogens and parasites, and impacts the plants from which they feed.

Stories

Immigrants face many challenges when assimilating in a new country. Reuters photographer Carlos Barria’s “Maria’s Journey” Stories entry highlights an immigrant from Honduras, Maria Hernandez, and her experience in the United States over multiple years.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Upon arriving in the United States from Honduras in 2017 in search of asylum, Maria Hernandez and her two daughters, aged eight and three, were apprehended. Border authorities deported Maria, but her children remained behind. At first, they stayed in a children’s shelter; later, they went to live with Maria’s adult son, who was already in the US. In 2022, Maria returned under an asylum program, and was reunited with her family in Los Angeles, California. The jury appreciated how this story visualizes the complications that immigrants often encounter when assimilating in a new country.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Long Term Projects

Cristopher Rogel Blanquet’s “Beautiful Poison” highlights the unequal use of toxic pesticides that disproportionately harms less-developed countries.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
The EU, China, the US, and other countries that have banned certain agrichemicals due to health and environmental risks still sometimes legally sell these substances to countries where labor is cheap and then import the products grown abroad. Although the Mexican government has begun to take steps against such double standards, some toxic pesticides remain on the market, and guidelines for their use are not always enforced. The photographer sought to document flower-growing families in Villa Guerrero in order to raise awareness of the environmental and human impact of agrichemicals in the Mexican flower belt and portray the authorities’ neglect of healthcare in the region, as well as to call attention to consumers’ responsibilities when buying flowers.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Open Format

Drill is a subgenre of rap in the U.S. Beyond providing art for people to enjoy, it’s often the target of police. Ashley Pena’s series “The Voice of New York is Drill” for New York Magazine shows some of the major players in the New York drill scene.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Drill, a musical genre that originated in Chicago, United States, may be the most recent wave of rap music to achieve massive global success, but its story is not new to hip-hop. Even as their hit songs top charts, New York drill artists are targeted by New York City Police Department (NYPD) investigators who comb their lyrics and music videos for evidence of gang-related crimes. Concerts are shut down and artists face indictments, all while success brings rivalry and jealousy among peers out on the streets. This series offers an intimate look at several members of this new generation of young men and women drill artists striving to realize their dreams.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

South America

Singles

On January 21, 2022, there was a major environmental disaster as huge amounts of crude oil spilled into the sea off the coast of Peru. Musuk Nolte (Bertha Foundation) captured the devastation with the image, “The Oil Spill in Lima.”

World Press Photo Contest 2023
On January 15, nearly 12,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into the sea while a tanker was unloading at the Spanish transnational oil company’s refinery. The spill extended over 7.13 square kilometers, polluting beaches, killing wildlife, and impacting livelihoods, in what the Peruvian government termed the country’s worst ecological disaster in recent memory. UN experts believe its effects will last up to ten years. The jury felt the photo communicated the devastating ecological impacts of oil extraction in the region with subtlety and clarity.

Stories

Photographer Alessandro Cinque looked at the livelihoods of people in the Peruvian Andes with the photo story “Alpaqueros” for National Geographic.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Vital to the livelihoods of many people in the Peruvian Andes, alpacas face new challenges due to the climate crisis. With natural pastures shrinking and glaciers retreating, these animals increasingly struggle to graze and hydrate. Alpaquero (alpaca-farmer) communities in turn may be forced to move to higher altitudes or to abandon their lifestyles. To combat these difficulties, scientists hope to address the problem by creating breeds more resistant to extremes in temperature. The jury appreciated the way the story illuminates how culture and identity are deeply intertwined with the environment.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Long Term Projects

Fabiola Ferrero’s Long Term Project considers the issues facing Venezuela.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Seven million Venezuelans have left their country to live abroad, driven by economic collapse, political unrest, high unemployment, and extreme social inequality. Around the turn of the millennium, oil-rich Venezuela was prosperous, but its fortunes declined following plummeting oil prices, later economic mismanagement, and political instability. Young people, especially, began to leave. The photographer was one, but she returns to search for traces of the Venezuela of her memory. Her project combines images of migration and past political violence with those of present-day Venezuela, of the decay and the resilience of people living within it.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Open Format

13-year old Valentina hopes to become a photographer. Her mother is in prison, another victim of an ongoing prison crisis in Ecuador. Johanna Alarcon (Magnum Foundation/Panos Pictures) covers the story through the project, “Shifting.”

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Valentina is a 13-year-old who aspires to become a photographer and whose mother is in prison for marijuana possession. Ecuador’s ongoing prison crisis and punitive drug sentencing policy means that the separation between parents and children has been especially harrowing. The video and imagery in this multimedia project center around the imagination and experiences of Valentina as a young artist, whose rich inner world is not defined by her mother’s incarceration, even as she awaits their reunion.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Southeast Asia and Oceania

Singles

Resistance fighters in Myanmar have been frequently clashing with Myanmar authorities. Mauk Khan Wah’s “Retrieving the Dead” shows the dark and quiet side of armed conflict.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
The PDF fights alongside regional and ethnic armed groups also opposed to Myanmar’s military dictatorship. It is the armed wing of a parallel government that was formed primarily by ousted democratic lawmakers in the wake of a military coup in Myanmar in 2021. At great personal risk, the photographer spent a year with people who had joined this combined resistance movement.

Stories

“Home for the Golden Gays” by Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York Times highlights the LGBTQI+ community in the Philippines that have long supported each other.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
The Golden Gays are a community of older LGBTQI+ people from the Philippines who have lived together for decades and support each other. In a country where they face discrimination, prejudice, and challenges amplified by their age and socioeconomic class, the group came together and made a home, sharing care responsibilities and staging shows and pageants to make ends meet. When their founder died in 2012, the community were evicted and some experienced homelessness until 2018, when they began renting a house in Manila. The jury commended this story for portraying the warmth, joy, and dignity of the community.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Long Term Projects

Another story from the Philippines, that of president Rodrigo Duterte’s infamous “war on drugs” is at the center of Kimberly de la Cruz’s “Death of a Nation” photo series.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
Soon after taking office in June 2016, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte began a concerted ‘war on drugs’, repeatedly ordering attacks against suspects. A surge of extrajudicial killings followed, perpetrated not only by police but also by masked vigilantes and other civilians. Amnesty International reports that executions mostly target low-income communities. The Philippine National Police admits to more than 6,000 such deaths to date; local human rights organizations put the figure at 30,000. The photographer has been documenting the war on drugs since its outset, and the jury commended her ability to capture the continued impact on families involved.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

Open Format

The Open Format winning project, “Australian Floods in Infrared,” puts a unique twist on recent floods in New South Wales, Australia. Photographer Chad Ajamian used aerial infrared images for this project.

World Press Photo Contest 2023
This series offers a unique perspective on the recent floods that have devastated areas in New South Wales, Australia. Aerial infrared imaging renders vegetation in pinks and reds, contrasting sharply against blues and cyans, which represent water. These images make newly flooded areas easily discernible to post-disaster emergency responders, assisting with response and recovery. The photos in this series were taken during the rounds of devastating floods in New South Wales, Australia, which forced the evacuation of 18,000 people in March 2021. The increased intensity and frequency of flooding in the region is likely an outcome of the global climate crisis.

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023

World Press Photo Contest 2023


The World Press Photo organization will announce the 2023 Photo Contest global winners on April 20.

Additional images and stories, including honorable mention winners, are available on the World Press Photo website.