An Analysis of the 2023 World Press Photo Winners

This year, the World Press Photo awards tackled some very big issues going on in the world. One of the most memorable was 2020 as the world shut down but journalists had to keep telling the stories. With the world becoming much more visual, photojournalists were really at the center of it all. The world has continued to change in so many different ways. And the winners of the World Press Photo awards this year reflect just that.

All images used with permission.

Table of Contents

A Statement to the Press

Here’s a statement that they gave the press:

With Russia’s war in Ukraine constantly in the news, the Photo of the Year goes to Evgeniy Maloletka for his confronting image from the siege of Mariupol for perfectly capturing the human suffering caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a single image.

The Story of the Year, nine haunting but beautiful photos by Mads Nissen, refuses to let us forget the people of Afghanistan living now under the Taliban and with a lack of international aid.

The Long-Term Project Award goes to Anush Babajanyan, for her work spanning years to highlight a story not often covered outside Central Asia about water management impacts after the end of the Soviet Union made worse by the climate crisis – but most importantly, showing the powerful spirit of people forced to adapt to new realities.

The Open Format Award goes to Mohamed Mahdy, who is collaborating with neighborhood residents of Al Max, in Alexandria, Egypt, to preserve the memory of their fast-disappearing fishing village and has invited the whole world to participate through an interactive website.

The four global winners were selected from 24 regional winners, which were chosen from more than 60,000 entries (still images and multimedia) submitted by 3,752 entrants from 127 countries. The entries were judged first by six regional juries and all winners chosen by a global jury consisting of the regional jury chairs plus the global jury chair.

Gear Isn’t Everything: But It’s Important

We’re strong believers that good images have four major parts: moment, the photographer, the subject, and the gear. With press images, we can see a lot of moments that were captured. The subjects in front of the photographers were doing something incredibly important. Further, the photographers had the training and experience to be able to capture unique perspectives. But of course, the cameras they were using also mattered. I think that this is shown because, while most of the photos don’t have EXIF data to show the gear being used, the ones that do show that some of the best cameras on the market were in hand.

At the same time, we can’t forget the skill of the photographers to tell stories and react to what’s happening in front of them.