2014 World Press Photo Exhibition

The World Press Photo Exhibition returns to Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. World Press Photo is the premier annual international competition in press photography, bringing together award-winning photographs from around the world, which capture the most powerful, moving and sometimes disturbing images of the year. This year 98,671 images were submitted to the contest by 5,754 photographers, representing 132 different nationalities.

Exhibited without censorship in about 100 cities, in 45 countries all over the world, the World Press Photo Exhibition offers an international showcase for all of the competition’s prize-winning entries, and is considered by many to set a standard in the field of photojournalism. The exhibition brings together approximately 140 of the winning photographs, most of which were taken in 2013.

The winning photographs depict a range of topics from human suffering, natural disasters, sporting endeavours to the beauty of the natural world. Subject matters in the news categories cover conflicts in Syria, Kenya, Iran, Gaza, Central African Republic and the aftermaths of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The sport category covers sporting events around the world and in the Nature category, one photographer shows the impact of industry on the environment through a series of arial photographs from a power plant in Poland.

The World Press Photo of the Year 2013, by American photographer John Stanmeyer of the VII Photo Agency, shows African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night, raising their phones in an attempt to capture an inexpensive signal from neighbouring Somalia—a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East. The picture also won First Prize in the Contemporary Issues category, and was shot for National Geographic.

The 2014 contest saw four UK photographers winning prizes. Abbie Trayler-Smith who won second prize in the Staged Portrait category with a photograph of Shannon, a sixteen-year old from Sheffield who has chosen to have a balloon inserted into her stomach for six months, to help her lose weight.

Photographer Nadav Kander won third prize in the category Staged Portraits Single. He won with a portrait of British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor who played the main role in the film 12 Years a Slave. Marcus Bleasdale won third prize in the Contemporary Issues category with a series of photographs of modern-day whalers. Julie McGuire secured third place in the Daily Life category with a photograph of an asylum for street dogs in Malaysia.