World Press Photo winners announced
The 2026 World Press Photo winners were published this weekend, with coverage highlighting images about climate, human connection and crisis — regional winners in Asia‑Pacific were singled out and Colombian photographers Ever Andrés Mercado Puentes and Ferley Ospina received recognition. (newatlas.com) (hongkongfp.com) (colombiaone.com)
World Press Photo announced the 2026 contest winners this weekend, selecting 42 projects from 57,376 images submitted by 3,747 photographers in 141 countries. (worldpressphoto.org) The Amsterdam-based organization said the winning work came from its Singles, Stories and Long-Term Projects categories across six regions, and that the overall World Press Photo of the Year winner and two finalists will be named on April 23, 2026. (worldpressphoto.org) World Press Photo has used a regional judging model since 2021, and this year it said 31 of the 42 winners photographed stories in their own regions. The group also reported 11 percent more entrants from South America and 14 percent more from Asia-Pacific and Oceania than in the 2025 contest. (worldpressphoto.org) The winners’ collection centers on conflict, climate pressure, protest, migration and daily life, with the organization describing the 2026 selection as a record of “the realities we face globally” in 2025. The contest is now in its 69th year. (worldpressphoto.org) In Asia-Pacific and Oceania, regional jury chair Yasuyoshi Chiba said judges looked for photographs that showed what happened in 2025 but also offered something “extraordinary or unexpected.” The region’s awarded work included Edwina Pickles’s “Bondi Beach Terror Attack” and Rob G. Green’s “Mountain Resident of Wanglang.” (worldpressphoto.org) South America’s winners included two Colombian photographers named in the Stories category: Ever Andrés Mercado Puentes for “Manacillos: A Return to Life” and Ferley A. Ospina for “Name the Absence.” Both projects were listed in World Press Photo’s official South America winners page. (worldpressphoto.org) Mercado Puentes’s project documents Juntas, an Afro-descendant community in Colombia’s Pacific rainforest that can be reached only by a 10-hour boat trip up the Yurumanguí River. World Press Photo said the community faces pressure from illegal mining, logging and armed conflict. (worldpressphoto.org) World Press Photo’s profile for Mercado Puentes says he was born in Buenaventura and focuses on human rights, peacebuilding and the search for missing persons in Colombia’s mid-Pacific region. Its profile for Ospina says he is based in Cúcuta and documents migration and armed conflict on the Colombia-Venezuela border and in Catatumbo. (worldpressphoto.org 1) (worldpressphoto.org 2) The 2026 winners will go on public display when the World Press Photo Exhibition opens at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam on April 24, before beginning its international tour. The awards announcement is only the first step; the contest’s top single winner will follow 11 days later. (worldpressphoto.org)
