Best Pro "Arts and Cultures" Picture

An open-air movie enthralls remote villagers in India's Maharashtra state in this year's winning picture from the "Arts and Culture" category of the World Photography Awards.
According to Indian photographer Amit Madheshiya, travelling cinemas and visiting villages far from movie theaters once a year makes screening a varied mix of films for the equivalent of about 40 U.S. cents a ticket.
Administered by the World Photography Organisation and sponsored by Sony, the awards are chosen by a panel of 12 judges, which was led by British photography critic Francis Hodges and included National Geographic magazine senior photography editor Kathy Moran. (The National Geographic Society owns both the magazine and National Geographic News.)
The 2011 winners, inclusive of the selected pictures shown here were chosen from more than 51,000 submissions from 148 countries. Photographers competed in multiple categories from either the Professional Competition or the Open Competition, for amateur photographers.

Best Amateur "After Dark" Picture

Hundreds of floating lanterns soar in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Showed in the winning "After Dark" picture in the World Photography Awards' 2011 Open Competition.
A statement relating to the lanterns was made by Photographer Chumlong Nilkon "We believe that it's a symbol of problems and worries floating away."

Best Pro "Current Affairs" Picture

This stunning picture was captured by Spanish photographer Javier Arcenillas, where a young Rohingya refugee in southern Bangladesh stares out from the winning picture in the professional "Current Affairs" category of the World Photography Awards.
Suppressed and wronged in Myanmar (Burma), the Rohingya (a Muslim minority), have taken refuge in neighboring countries such as Bangladesh for more than 50 years. Once across the border, many Rohingya survive in makeshift camps with little or no basic facilities, including food and water.

Best Pro "Still Life" Series

Extraordinarily camouflaged leaf insects rest on a plant in a picture from the photo series that won the professional "Still Life" category of the World Photography Awards. The pictures by photographer Renhui Zhao of Singapore were taken during a leaf insect competition in Tokyo, whereby collectors display prize specimens.

Best Pro "People" Series

Argentine professional photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg captures "The Hunter" which is one in a series of pictures that examines a community living in Argentina's Paraná River Delta. Named "High Tide," the collection won the "People" category and gathered its creator L'Iris d'Or the World Photography Contest's photographer-of-the-year prize.
Chaskielberg shared daily life with islanders in the delta for two years while working on the project. "My photographs set out to document the way they live and work," he said in a statement.

Best Pro "Contemporary Issues" Series

A young boy walks past the body of an assassinated woman in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The picture was captured by Spanish photographer Javier Arcenillas's winning Sicarios ("assassins") series, which explores hit man culture in Latin America.
"Young people living in poverty," Arcenillas said in a statement, "are seduced by the ease of earning money" as gunmen.

Best Pro "Landscape" Series

Landscape Photographer Florence Iff photographed artificial indoor displays, such as the one above for her Post-Arcadia series.
The Swiss photographer captured the images at natural history museums, indoor garden shows, zoos, and botanical gardens. According to Iff, the pictures are part of a long-term project on landscape and its representation.

Best Pro "Sport" Series

Two members of Ethiopia’s seminomadic Bodi tribe walk away with a victory cup after taking part in a traditional New Year's "fat-man competition", picture by Pavel Wolberg of Israel.
Three to six months before the contest, many young Bodi men consume only cow blood and milk, which is apparently quite fattening, according to a statement by Wolberg. "On competition day, they arrive to the Bodi King village," he said, "and after the dance they are measured by the elders, who then decide who is the winner and the fattest."

Best Amateur "Nature/Wildlife" Picture

In this photograph by Indonesian Andiyan Lutfi, takes a picture of ants stretching for food. This image took home the prize for best amateur nature or wildlife picture.

Best Pro "Portraiture" Series

A man identified as Bruno reflects after a meal in one of a series of pictures by French photographer Alain Willaume.

The portraits in the series, called "The Common Part", all show people infront of emptied plates. Willaume states that they are intended "to take us to the crossroads between two worlds: the privacy of an intimate ritual and the boundaries of an inner landscape."

Via: Nationalgeographic

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