The popular World Press Photo Exhibition returns to Wellington later this year, bringing the best and most important photojournalism and documentary photography from around the globe to the capital. The exhibition at TAKINA Wellington Convention and Exhibition Centre will present the winning photographs of the prestigious annual World Press Photo Contest from Friday 5 September - Sunday 5 October 2025.

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

New Zealand was well represented at the World Press Photo Contest this year. Julia Durkin MZNM – Founder and CEO of Auckland Festival of Photography – served on the judging panel for the Asia Pacific & Oceania region as the first ever New Zealander appointed as a judge and  Nelson-based photographer Tatsiana Chypsana has won 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 in photojournalism and documentary photography and 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 is recognised and awarded. Entries are judged and awarded in the region in which the photographs and stories are shot, rather than on the nationality of the photographer. Nevertheless, this year, 30 of 42 regional winners were local to the country where they photographed their project.