Sony World Photography Award winners from Asia to go on show: a sacred dance in Bali, a desert sunset in Pakistan, a portrait from a Myanmar monastery
- From evocative landscapes in Thailand, Taiwan and Pakistan to thought-provoking portraits, Asian photographers provided several winning entries in the contest
- The winners’ images will be exhibited in London along with works from Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, a World Photography Organisation award winner
On the Indonesian island of Bali, young women wearing elaborate costumes and floral headdresses perform Rejang, a dance in which the participants offer themselves to the gods.
This sacred dance caught the eye of Indonesian photographer Metha Meiryna. “In Bali, dancing is part of local traditions and religious ceremonies and this dance is traditionally performed by young women at a ceremony in the inner courtyard of a temple,” says Methi.
One of her images, titled The Rejang Dancer, also caught the attention of judges at this year’s Sony World Photography Awards, the photo winning in the Indonesian national awards’ portraiture section.
For the past decade, the national awards – jointly organised with the World Photography Organisation – have provided more than 550 photographers with a platform for global exposure. This year’s event saw 61 countries take part, with more than 340,000 images submitted from 211 territories.
Also on the winners’ list was Yawar Abbas, from Pakistan, with his image Golden Snake showing a sunset in a desert near Skardu, a scenic valley in Pakistan’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.