Global Winners Just Announced For Prestigious World Press Photo Contest, Exhibition Returning To Auckland This July

Rotary Club of Auckland presents
World Press Photo Exhibition
Saturday 26 July - Sunday 24 August, Auckland

The internationally acclaimed World Press Photo Exhibition returns to Auckland later this year, showcasing the best and most important photojournalism and documentary photography from around the globe. The exhibition, which presents the winning photographs of the prestigious annual World Press Photo Contest, will head to Tāmaki Makaurau thanks to the Rotary Club of Auckland, from 26 July – 24 August at Level 1, Smith and Caughey’s Building.

Presented in more than 60 cities each year, the World Press Photo Exhibition 2025 invites viewers to step outside the news cycle and think critically about important topics in our world. Key themes range from politics, gender, migration, to conflict and the climate crisis.

This year New Zealand is well represented at the World Press Photo Contest. For the first time ever a New Zealander was appointed as a judge. Julia Durkin MZNM – Founder and CEO of Auckland Festival of Photography – served on the judging panel for the Asia Pacific & Oceania regional winners. Julia is available for interviews (full bio here). Nelson-based photographer Tatsiana Chypsana has also already been announced as the Asia-Pacific & Oceania – Long Term Projects winner, with her powerful series Te Urewera – The Living Ancestor of Tūhoe People.

The 2025 global Photo of the Year winner and two runners up, which have just been announced, are:

Photo of the Year

Title: Mahmoud Ajjour, Aged Nine
© Samar Abu Elouf, for The New York Times
Story: As his family fled an Israeli assault, Mahmoud turned back to urge others onward. An explosion severed one of his arms and mutilated the other. The family were evacuated to Qatar where, after medical treatment, Mahmoud is learning to use his feet to play games on his phone, write, and open doors. Aside from that, he needs special assistance for most daily activities, such as eating and dressing. Mahmoud’s dream is simple: he wants to get prosthetics and live his life as any other child.

The photographer, who is from Gaza and was herself evacuated in December 2023, lives in the same Doha apartment complex as Mahmoud in Qatar. She has bonded with families there, and documented some of the few badly wounded Gazans who made it out for treatment.

Runner Up

Title: Night Crossing

© John Moore, Getty Images

Story: Unauthorised immigration from China to the US has increased dramatically in recent years due to a host of factors, including China’s struggling economy and financial losses after strict zero-COVID policies. Moreover, people are being influenced by video tutorials on how to get across the border, shown on Chinese social media platforms. This image, both otherworldly and intimate, depicts the complex realities of migration at the border, which is often flattened and politicized in public discourse in the United States.

Runner Up

Title: Droughts in the Amazon

© Musuk Nolte, Panos Pictures, Bertha Foundation

Story: The Amazon River is experiencing record low-water levels due to severe drought intensified by climate change. This ecological crisis threatens biodiversity, disrupts ecosystems, and impacts local communities reliant on rivers for survival. As droughts intensify, many settlers face the difficult choice of abandoning their land and livelihoods for urban areas, changing the social fabric of this region permanently. This project makes the effects of climate change, which can so often be abstract or difficult to represent, appear as a tangible and concrete reality shaping the futures of vulnerable communities closely connected with the natural world.

The global winners were selected from 42 regional winners, which were chosen out of 59,320 entries from 3,778 photographers across 141 countries. They were judged first by six regional juries, and the winners were then chosen by an independent global jury consisting of the regional jury chairs plus the global jury chair.

Since 1955, the annual World Press Photo Contest has been recognising and celebrating the best photojournalism and documentary photography. 2025 marks the 70th anniversary of World Press Photo. In addition to the winning photographs, this year’s exhibition will include a special display of 70 years of World Press Photo.

70 years on the contest is increasingly globally representative with the inclusion of the Regional Contest (with six regions Africa; Asia-Pacific and Oceania; Europe; North and Central America; South America; West, Central, and South Asia), ensuring that exceptional news and documentary photography from every corner of the world would be recognised and awarded. Entries are judged and awarded in the region in which the photographs and stories are shot, rather than the nationality of the photographer. This year, 30 out of 42 regional winners were also local to the country where they photographed their project.

World Press Photo Exhibition Auckland

Dates: Saturday 26 July - Sunday 24 August

Times: Sunday - Tuesday: 10.30am – 6pm. Wednesday – Saturday: 10.30am – 6.30PM

Location: Level 1, Smith and Caughey’s Building, Elliot St Entrance

Tickets on sale soon

The exhibition is also going to Wellington from Friday 5 September - Sunday 5 October 2025 and will be held at the Ground Floor: TAKINA Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre – next to Te Papa – National Museum of New Zealand.

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