The winners are chosen by regional and global juries. Regional juries, made up of five professionals from and/or working in that region, will first prepare a selection of entries per region. From this selection, a global jury, made up of the six regional jury chairs and one additional member, will then award the regional and global winners.
Read more about the judging process.
Why do we provide information about the photographers to the jury?To truly be representative of the world, it is key that a percentage of photographers are local to the region they are photographing in. Both local and external viewpoints are valuable, but we need to ensure a balance between the two.
Therefore, we provide the jury with a limited amount of information about the photographer, to tackle the issues of regional and gender representation. For entries to the categories Singles, Stories and Long-Term Projects, the photographer’s name will not be disclosed at any point during the judging process. For entries to the Open Format category, the photographer’s name might be integrated into the entry, for example in the credits of a video. In this case, the jury will be asked not to take this into account at any stage of the judging process.
We feel this process is fair and effective, resulting in a better selection of winning images while improving the balance of diversity across them.
Read more about the judging process and representation in the 2023 Contest.
What information about the photographer will be shared with the jury?To ensure that judging is as fair and efficient as possible, the following information will be given in the respective rounds:
Round 1: No photographer information given.
This is to ensure that the entries progressing to Round 2 are selected for their visual quality.
Round 2 onwards: Information about photographer nationality, where they are based, gender, and title of the work will be given.
From Round 2 onwards, jury members will be able to view and discuss remaining entries considering the nationality, location and gender of entrants, as well as the title of the work.
Round 3 onwards: An edit of the caption given.
The who, what, when, where and why in a single or story will be available on the judging platform. This is an edit by World Press Photo based on the entered caption that summarizes the basic information of good journalism to facilitate a clear and fair judging process.
Round 4 onwards: Relevant additional information given.
From Round 4 onwards, jury members will be able to discuss additional information relating to how and why the story was made, such as the motivation to work on the project, the type of project (assignment/personal project), and funding of the project. This information is requested on entry.
For entries to the categories Singles, Stories and Long-Term Projects, at no stage will we share the photographer’s name or other personal information not listed above with the jury. For entries to the Open Format category, the photographer’s name might be integrated into the entry, for example in the credits of a video. In this case, the jury will be asked not to take this into account at any stage of the judging process.
Why don’t regional juries pick the regional winners?Our aim is to ensure our winners showcase a selection of stories and images that are balanced across the world, for everyone in the world. If the regional juries were to pick the regional winners, there is a risk that each jury would pick photos that are too similar across regions, or that don’t capture a diverse range of stories across regions.
For example, for this year we might imagine that forest fire images could be picked for every continent - which is important but this means another type of story is left out. For this reason, the global jury will pick both the regional and global winners of the contest.
How many winners will there be?
There will be 24 regional winners (four categories x six regions), and from these, there will be four global winners (one per category). The four global winners will, therefore, also be regional winners. The global jury can also choose one Honorable Mention per region. These will be announced at the same time as the regional winners.
