- British photographer Zed Nelson scoops SWPA’s $25,000 top prize
- 10 category winners announced
- The exhibition is open to the public at London’s Somerset House until May 5
“In a tiny fraction of Earth’s history, humans have altered the world beyond anything it has experienced in tens of millions of years. Scientists are calling it a new epoch: The Anthropocene – the age of human”.
These are the opening words describing the Sony World Photography Awards 2025 winner Zed Nelson’s project, The Anthropocene Illusion.
The project, spanning six years and four continents, explores humankind’s consumer behaviour towards nature and wildlife.
“So, while we devastate the world around us, we have become masters of a stage-managed, artificial ‘experience’ of nature – a reassuring spectacle, an illusion…to mask our destructive impact on the natural world.”
Powerful words and confrontational images of wildlife in zoos, national parks, and museums across the world, some of which I have included below.
Image 1 of 2
As I prepared to interview Zed during the opening day of the SWPA 2025 exhibition, which is being held at Somerset House in London until May 5, it struck me how severely AI is impacting the landscape of imaging in an equally tiny fraction of the history of photography.
I asked Zed for his thoughts on AI image generation in photography, and here’s what he said.
“The biggest worry in documentary photography, is people stop believing in what they see. Already we’re at the stage where we can see an image and the first questions are; Is this photoshopped? Did that really happen? Did you move something? Is that image real?
“The problem with that, is that the joy and beauty in photography is to see something and be amazed and think this did happen, this is real, this is a record – even for future generations – of who we were and what we did.
“If AI erodes people’s belief in the medium (photography) then we have problems. On the other hand, it may be that we start valuing truth more. And if an image is declared real – this is not AI, but a document of reality – it may be that its value increases.
There will also be a move, a valuing of what is real, and so documentary work will start to become more important, not less.
“As AI multiplies it will cause problems, people will question what’s real and what isn’t. But I imagine there will also be a move, a valuing of what is real, and so documentary work will start to become more important, not less. People will crave it, they’ll want to know it’s real.
“I think there will be a separation between what is utterly created through AI, and what is declared real. We will gravitate to what is verified as real, made by people that care, and have a genuine interest in telling stories.”
After our conversation, I amble through the SWPA exhibition, soaking in the diverse collection of very real images. A greater appreciation grows in me for those real stories, real people, real places, created in a real moment in time, and they impact me all the more.
I concur with Zed – even as AI-generated images become increasingly believable and plentiful, and the tools become easier and cheaper to access, we’ll still need to know and experience what is real, and be moved by it.
We can’t afford to be disconnected from photography because of AI image generation, in the same way that Zed suggests in his project that we have become disconnected from nature and are instead consumers of it.
I’ve included a selection of the SWPA winning images below. Even so, if you’re in London, I highly recommend experiencing the exhibition firsthand and seeking out other photography shows near you. More details can be found at the World Photography Organisation website.
The Sony World Photography Awards 2025 winners for each category
The Sony World Photography Awards comprises 10 categories, and the winner of one of these categories is also awarded the overall photographer of the year. As mentioned, this year’s award went to Zed Nelson, who also won the Wildlife & Nature category.
In addition to those categories, there is a student photographer and a youth photographer of the year award. I’ve included an image from each of those winners below.
In all, there were around 420,000 entries from 206 countries – a record for the 18-year-old contest.
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