Less than two weeks after the World Press Photo winners were announced, the World Photography Organisation has put itself center stage with the release of the shortlists for its Professional, Open and Youth categories.

The world’s biggest photography competition got even bigger this year as the number of submissions grew by 24% compared to 2014.

Almost half of the photos were submitted to the Open categories where anyone can enter, reaffirming the general feeling that every second person today is a photographer, or as the press release referred to them – “the growing army of citizen photographers”.

Jokes aside, I’m happy to see so many non-professional submissions and so are the organizers who state the awards offer these photographers “unpreceded exposure and opportunity”.

[Read More…]