The World Press Photo Foundation, commemorating its 70th anniversary this year, announces the regional winners of the World Press Photo 2025, the latest edition of the world’s most renowned photojournalism contest. This announcement includes 42 winning photographers from the 6 regions into which the contest divides global participation: Africa, Asia-Pacific and Oceania, Europe, North and Central America, South America, and West, Central, and South Asia. Each region features 3 categories: Single Photographs, Photo Stories, and Long-Term Projects.
The winning projects of the World Press Photo 2025 contest, representing events and topics from 2024, focus on some of the most urgent social issues facing the world today, including politics, gender issues, migration, conflicts, and the climate crisis. From protests in Kenya and El Salvador to the devastating wars in Lebanon and Palestine, the multifaceted impacts of the climate crisis in Peru, Brazil, and the Philippines, and the persecution of the LGBTQI+ community in Nigeria, among many other subjects.
Among the winners are two Spanish authors, both in the Stories category: photographer Samuel Nacar (Barcelona) has been awarded within the West, Central, and South Asia region for “The Shadows Already Have Names,” a project about survivors of Syrian prisons who recount the tortures they endured under the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad, published by Revista 5W. Also Luis Tato (Ciudad Real), awarded in the Africa region for “Revuelta juvenil en Kenia”, photographic project about the protests in Kenya motivated by the country’s tax increase, and fueled by anger at economic hardship, corruption, police brutality, and distrust of the political class, published by Agence France-Presse.
Samuel Nacar and the Tortures of Syrian Prisons
The protracted Syrian civil war reached a turning point on December 8, 2024, when rebel forces, after two weeks of military successes, seized the capital, Damascus, with minimal resistance, overthrowing the 24-year regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Rebel forces immediately began liberating inmates from a vast network of detention centers, the core of which was the notorious Sednaya military prison. Survivor accounts revealed the extent of the al-Assad regime’s systematic detention, torture, and secret execution of its opponents, normalizing a prison system, already brutal in itself, as a weapon of war. Read here the full report published by Revista 5W, featuring photographs by Samuel Nacar and texts by journalist Agus Morales.
“Agus (Morales) and I spent two months trying to publish this report globally, but no one wanted the story. Accepting rejection is fine, but when you receive such recognition, it fills you with pride,” comments Samuel Nacar, referring to the World Press Photo award, in exclusive statements to the Photographic Social Vision Foundation, of which Samuel has been a member since winning the 2nd Edition of the Joana Biarnés Grantt, awarded by the same entity.
To Samuel Nacar, this project “is the culmination of ten years of coverage on migratory routes, especially the Syrian exodus. Telling what the regime has done and why people were fleeing Syria is fundamental to understanding the migratory processes we have in Europe. And even more so now, when they no longer want to grant visas and claim that Syria is a safe place. Remembering that they have been through ten years of civil war and that there is still constant violence in the streets is essential to understand how we have treated people who were literally fleeing war, a dictator, prisons, torture, mass graves…”
“I don’t have a voice to say whether Syria’s future will go well or badly. But I can speak about how Europe treats migrant people. And I believe that this type of project helps to generate empathy so that we know where people are often fleeing from. We cannot defend the Europe of democracy, freedoms, and rights, and have brutal borders and people dying on our shores because we are incapable of creating a safe route where people can migrate.”
Samuel Nacar will participate in the activities of the World Press Photo Barcelona exhibition, explaining more about his work and the situation in Syria. The Photographic Social Vision Foundation will organize this renowned exhibition in Barcelona for the twenty-first consecutive year, which can be visited from November 7 to December 14 at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), co-producer of this event, which has the main collaboration of the Banco Sabadell Foundation.
Protesters chant slogans and push a makeshift barricade as they clash with Kenyan police officers during an anti-government demonstration. Nairobi, Kenya, 2 July 2024.
The World Press Photo of the Year 2025 winner, along with two runner-ups for the same award, will be announced on April 17, 2025.
The contest featured the participation of 3,778 photographers from 141 countries and 59,320 photographs. The 42 regional winners—20 of whom are local to the region in which they developed their stories—come from 30 countries: Germany, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, South Korea, El Salvador, Spain, United States, Philippines, France, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Netherlands, Palestine, Peru, Portugal, United Kingdom, Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela.
Lucy Conticello, Director of Photography at M, Le Monde’s weekend magazine, and this year’s global jury chair, stated: “While the World Press Photo is a significant recognition for photographers, who often work in challenging circumstances, it is also a summary of major global events, albeit an incomplete one. As a jury, we were looking for images around which people could engage in conversations”.
Here is the complete list of the World Press Photo 2025 regional winners:
AFRICA
Singles
“Tamale Safalu”
Marijn Fidder, Netherlands
“Life Won’t Stop”
Mosab Abushama, Sudan
“Mother Moves, House Approves”
Temiloluwa Johnson, Nigeria
Stories
“The Lake Has Fallen Silent”
Aubin Mukoni, Democratic Republic of Congo
“Kenya’s Youth Uprising”
Luis Tato, Spain, Agence France-Presse
“The Elephant Whisperers of Livingstone”
Tommy Trenchard, United Kingdom, Panos Pictures for NPR
Long-Term Projects
“Women’s Bodies as Battlefields”
Cinzia Canneri, Italy, Association Camille Lepage
ASIA-PACIFIC AND OCEANIA
Singles
“Korea Adoption Fraud”
Jae C. Hong, South Corea, Associated Press
“Gabriel Medina During the Paris 2024 Olympic Games”
Jerome Brouillet, France, Agence France-Presse
“The Impact of Nickel Mining on Halmehera Island”
Mas Agung Wilis Yudha Baskoro, Indonesia, for China Global South Project
Stories
“No More Monkey Mania in Thai Town”
Chalinee Thirasupa, Thailand, Reuters
“Four Storms, 12 Days”
Noel Celis, Philippines, Associated Press
“A Nation In Conflict”
Ye Aung Thu, Myanmar
Long-Term Projects
“Te Urewera – The Living Ancestor of Tūhoe People”
Tatsiana Chypsanava, Belarus, Pulitzer Center, New Zealand Geographic
EUROPE
Singles
“Beyond the Trenches”
Florian Bachmeier, Germany
“Underground Field Hospital”
Nanna Heitmann, Germany, Magnum Photos
“Mika”
Prins de Vos, Netherlands, Queer Gallery
Stories
“MARIA”
Maria Abranches, Portugal
“Protests in Georgia”
Mikhail Tereshchenko, Russia, TASS Agency
“Democracy Dies in Darkness”
Rafael Heygster, Germany, for Der Spiegel
Long-Term Projects
“It Smells of Smoke at Home”
Aliona Kardash, Russia/Germany, DOCKS Collective, for Stern Magazine
NORTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA
Singles
“Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump”
Jabin Botsford, USA, for The Washington Post
“Night Crossing”
John Moore, USA, Getty Images
“Constance Wynn II, Wikes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 2025”
Philip Montgomery, USA, for The New York Times Magazine
Stories
“A Place to Die”
Oliver Farshi, United Kingdom
“A Town Derailed”
Rebecca Kiger, USA, Center for ContemporaryDocumentation,TIME
“Crisis in Haiti”
Clarens Siffroy, Haiti, Agence France-Presse
Long-Term Projects
“Life and Death in a Country Without Constitutional Rights”
Carlos Barrera, El Salvador, El Faro, NPR
SOUTH AMERICA
Singles
“Botafogo Fans: Pride and Glory”
André Coelho, Brasil, EFE
“Aircraft on Flooded Tarmac”
Anselmo Cunha, Brasil, Agence France-Presse
“The Last Hope”
Gabriela Oráa, Venezuela, Reuters
Stories
“Brazil’s Worst-Ever Floods”
Amanda M. Perobelli, Brasil, Reuters
“Droughts in the Amazon”
Musuk Nolte, Peru/Mexico, Panos Pictures, Bertha Foundation
“Jaidë”
Santiago Mesa, Colombia
Long-Term Project
“Paths of Desperate Hope”
Frederico Ríos, Colombia
WEST, CENTRAL, AND SOUTH ASIA
Singles
“Drone Attacks in Beirut”
Murat Şengül, Türkiye, Anadolu Agency
“Mahmoud Ajjour, Aged Nine”
Samar Abu Elouf, Palestine, for The New York Times
“The Canvas of Power”
Suvra Kanti Das, Bangladesh, for The Daily Prothom Alo
Stories
“Gaza Under Israeli Attack”
Ali Jadallah, Palestine, Anadolu Agency
“No Woman’s Land”
Kiana Hayeri, Iran/Canada, Fondation Carmignac
“The Shadows Already Have Names”
Samuel Nacar, España, for Revista 5W
Long-Term Project
“Bullets Have No Borders”
Ebrahim Alipoor, Iran
