13 truly phenomenal images: the 2020 Sony World Photography Award winners

The winners of this year's awards tell stories of environmental issues in Latin America, protests in Hong Kong and the lives of refugees arriving in Europe

The winners for this year's Sony World Photography Awards have been announced, with Pablo Albarenga named Photographer of the Year for his series Seeds of Resistance, which tells the stories of Latin America's indigenous communities and their struggle for environmental justice.

Of the series Albarenga wrote, "In 2017, at least 207 leaders and environmentalists were killed while protecting their communities from mining, agribusiness and other projects threatening their territories... Despite being immersed in such a violent situation, indigenous and traditional populations refuse to abandon their land, even when it has been completely destroyed."

He explains that the indigenous communities have a "unique bond to their territories", since the land not only offers support for livelihood and food, but also serves as "a sacred area in which hundreds of generations of their ancestors rest".

In his images, the photographer juxtaposes his subjects with aerial images of their landscape, poignantly highlighting the ties between them.

Albarenga is awarded $25,000 (Dh91,000) for his winning work.

Other categories in the professional competition include Architecture, Creative, Discovery, Documentary, Landscape, Natural World & Wildlife, Portraiture, Still Life, Sport, and the latest addition for 2020, Environment.

First place in the Environment category is awarded to Robin Hinsch for his series Wahala

The winner of the inaugural Environment award is Robin Hinsch for his series on the impact of the petroleum industry on the ecology and communities in the Niger Delta.

Titled Wahala, the work details the human and environmental cost of economic development in the area, which includes crop destruction, water pollution and health problems for residents.

Over the decades, millions of oil barrels have been spilled into the Niger Delta, some the result of pipeline and tanker accidents, others of sabotage.

For the Portraiture category, Cesar Dezfuli's long-running project Passengers begins with photographs of men rescued from a rubber boat drifting in the Mediterranean Sea in 2016. Over the next three years, the photographer worked to locate the passengers and take a new portrait to showcase them in their new lives.

In his series, he places the two images side by side. "I wanted to show that each individual had a latent identity that just needed a peaceful context in order to flourish again," Dezfuli wrote in the description of his work. 

First place for the Portraiture category goes to Cesar Dezfuli, who photographed the men rescued from a rubber boat drifting in the Mediterranean Sea in 2016. Over the course of three years, the photographer searched for these men to photograph them again. Cesar Dezfuli,

Other highlights include Chung Ming Ko's striking portraits of protesters in Hong Kong, which began in March last year and continue to this day and Ronny Behnert's series Torii, which won first place for the Landscape category, and shows minimalist shots of torii, traditional Japanese gates typically found at the entrance to Shinto shrines.

Click through the gallery above to see the rest of the winners of the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards.