Sony World Photography Awards 2023 announce Qatar winner

The World Photography Organisation and Sony Middle East & Africa have announced Abdulla AL-Mushaifri as the Qatar national winner for the Sony World Photography Awards 2023.
The national awards programme is an initiative set up by the World Photography Organisation and Sony to support local photographic communities around the world, with 55 countries taking part this year, a statement said.
Over 415,000 images from over 200 countries and territories were submitted to the Sony World Photography Awards 2023 and over 200,000 entered to the Open competition (from which the national awards winner was selected).
AL-Mushaifri was anonymously selected by judges for his photograph Confident, entered into the Portraiture category of the Open competition. The winning photograph depicts a young ‘knight’ demonstrating his horsemanship, while simultaneously looking at the assembled photographers waiting to take a picture of him. This photograph was taken in Oman.
AL-Mushaifri is from Oman and currently lives and works in Qatar. He started photography as a hobby in 2012 and in 2014, he started joining international photography competitions and has received international awards.
Commenting on his win, AL-Mushaifri said: “I am happy to win for the fifth time, it means a lot to me due to its importance as one of the largest photography competitions in the world. I consider it as an important opportunity to continue my success in photography, allowing my photos to reach a large segment of audience from different countries in the world. Thank you, Sony for your continuous support to photographers.”
As Qatar’s national award winner, AL-Mushaifri receives Sony digital imaging equipment and will be included in the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition and book.
The overall winners in the Student, Youth, Open and Professional competitions of the Sony World Photography Awards 2023 will be announced on April 13, 2023 and will go on display as part of the exhibition at Somerset House, London (April 14- May 1, 2023).