More than 430,000 photographs were submitted to the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards from more than 200 countries and territories. That number is worth sitting with for a moment, not as a marketing statistic but as an indication of what the awards have become in their two decades of existence: a global barometer of where photography is, what it is doing and what it is capable of. From August 15, Johannesburg gets to see a selection of the work that rose to the top of that field.
Decisive Moment: Sony World Photography Awards opens at the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography in Forest Town, and runs until January 22 2027. It is the first time the awards have been presented in South Africa, and the exhibition draws from three consecutive years of winning images starting in 2024, across documentary, portraiture, wildlife, sport, landscape and creative photography. The breadth of subject matter is the point. This is not a thematically curated exhibition with a single argument to make. It is a survey of what photographers across the world chose to look at, and how they chose to look.
The Sony World Photography Awards have, over 20 editions, built a record that extends beyond competition. The Outstanding Contribution to Photography award, presented annually to a figure of lasting influence, has gone to William Eggleston, Mary Ellen Mark, Martin Parr, Graciela Iturbide, Sebastião Salgado, Susan Meiselas and, most recently, Joel Meyerowitz.
Running concurrently is New Eyes, an exhibition dedicated to emerging South African photographers and the inaugural presentation of the Roger Ballen Centre’s own photography award. The three photographers shown, DM Terblanche, Karabo Mooki and Zwelibanzi Zwane, were selected by a panel comprising Emilie Demon, Jabulani Dhlamini and Michelle Loukidis, each bringing expertise across photography, education and curatorship. Their work appears alongside the international award winners, a deliberate curatorial decision that places emerging South African practice in direct conversation with some of the most-recognised photography produced anywhere in the world over the past three years.
The combination of the two exhibitions is what makes the programme at the Roger Ballen Centre so valuable. Decisive Moment provides the international context. New Eyes provides the local one. Between them, they make a case for Johannesburg as a city where that kind of dialogue belongs.
“The exhibition gathers perspectives, stories, environments, cultures and artistic approaches from across the globe, and presents them in a city that is itself defined by complexity and diversity,” says Roger Ballen, founder of the centre. “We believe this exhibition will offer something meaningful to every visitor.”
A public programme of talks, walkabouts, workshops and masterclasses will run alongside both exhibitions, with details updated regularly through the centre’s website and social channels.
The Decisive Moment: Sony World Photography Awards and New Eyes: The Roger Ballen Centre Photography Award exhibitions run from August 15 2026 to January 22 2027 at the Roger Ballen Centre for Photography.
The Roger Ballen Centre for Photography is open Tuesday to Friday from 10am to 4pm and Saturdays from 10am to 12pm. Admission is R50.
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