Sony World Photography Professional Nature & Wildlife Category 1st Winner
「moment」
First ever Asian winner of the professional competition
Japanese photographer Satoru Kondo is tonight awarded the Sony World Photography Awards Nature & Wildlife Photographer of the Year title. It is the first time in the six-year history of the awards that a photographer from Asia has been awarded 1st place in the Professional competition.
The winning series, titled “Moment”, was chosen from over 122,000 submissions from 170 countries by the Sony World Photography Awards Honorary Jury. The jury was chaired by Catherine Chermayeff, Director of Special Projects at Magnum Photos, and made up of photography experts from across the world.
His series capture the beautiful but transient life of flowers. Talking about his win Kondo comments: “It is a great honour and pleasure for me to receive this award. This series, “moment”, are portraits of flowers which depict the beauty of each individual flower. I have approached to these flowers as if they were women, and not just plants. Flowers, like women, have many beautiful aspects. Sometimes pretty and delicate, sometimes strong and vigorous. Every moment was a miracle for me, and was filled with lights of happiness.
Thank you, my lovely flower models!!”
Satoru Kondo was born in Tokyo in 1969 and moved to the United Kingdom in 2004 to study at London Collage of Communication (formerly known as London College of Printing) in London. He now lives in Taipei, Taiwan and works as a freelance photographer, specialising in subjects like life and death and the vitality of life. Kondo is highly acclaimed in his solo exhibitions and has won many awards from various photography competitions at home and abroad.
The 15 Professional category winners announced at the awards are:
- Architecture – Fabrice Fouillet, France
- Arts and Culture – Myriam Meloni, Italy
- Campaign – Christian Åslund, Sweden
- Conceptual – Roman Pyatkovka, Ukraine
- Contemporary Issues – Valerio Bispuri, Italy
- Current Affairs – Ilya Pitalev, Russia
- Fashion – Klaus Thymann, Denmark
- Landscape – Nenad Saljic, Croatia
- Lifestyle – Alice Caputo, Italy
- Nature & Wildlife – Satoru Kondo, Japan
- People – Andrea Gjestvang, Norway
- Portraiture – Jens Juul, Denmark
- Sport – Adam Pretty, Australia
- Still Life – Vanessa Colareta, Peru
- Travel – Gali Tibbon, Israel
