Sony World Photography Awards: Categories Becoming Increasingly Nuanced?

Sony World Photography Awards: Categories Becoming Increasingly Nuanced?

An article published by Photo culture propose a reflection on the boundaries between different photographic genres within the Sony World Photography Awards 2026, taking as an example the category Landscape.

The author focuses on the project “Constructed Landscapes” of the British artist Dafna Talmor, winner of the Landscape section of the Professional Competition. The images are born from landscape negatives that are cropped, reassembled, and printed manually, giving life to works that blend photography and collage.

According to the author, work of this kind would seem to belong more naturally to the category Creative, which the regulation itself reserves for experimental techniques, composite images, and photographic manipulations.

This raises a question: Where does landscape photography end and creative photography begin? The distinction is becoming less clear, and the jury's decisions, inevitably subjective, contribute to redefining the boundaries between categories.

The author also recalls that a similar doubt had already arisen in 2025 with the victory of Seido Kino in the same category, a sign that the theme is not new.

More than a critique of the winners, the article represents a reflection on how photographic projects are classified and how traditional gender definitions are becoming increasingly elastic. Ultimately, the author concludes, by changing the juries, not only the winners can change, but also the very meaning of the categories.