2026 Outstanding Contribution to Photography: Joel Meyerowitz
2026 Outstanding Contribution to Photography: Joel Meyerowitz
We’re thrilled to announce that Joel Meyerowitz has been named the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography in this year’s Sony World Photography Awards.
Born in New York City, USA in 1938, Joel Meyerowitz studied painting and medical drawing at Ohio State University before working as an advertising art director. After watching the Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank shoot an advertising project for him in 1962, Meyerowitz immediately quit his job and went out onto the streets with a borrowed camera and two rolls of colour film, and embarked on a career that would make an indelible mark on the medium.
While his early work was in colour, he later added black-and-white to his photography. Meyerowitz’s work forms an integral part of the American photographic canon – it has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide and has been published in 57 monographs. Driven by the desire for continual learning, Meyerowitz doesn’t confine himself to a single genre, instead experimenting with street photography, portraits, and landscapes.
Commenting on his acceptance of the award, Joel Meyerowitz says: ‘I am honoured to be selected as this year’s Outstanding Contribution to Photography recipient. The photographs I have made over the years show the world as I see it, and the moments of beauty, humour and fun that can be found everywhere, if we take the opportunity to look. I hope this exhibition will encourage visitors to look again at their surroundings and engage with all of the life that unfolds around them.’
A retrospective of Joel Meyerowitz’s works will be shown at Somerset House, London, as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2026 exhibition. This showcase offers an insight into the spirit and curiosity that have characterised his practice for the past six decades. Through video and audio installations, Meyerowitz invites visitors to see from his vantage point, recalling the sense of wonder he felt upon first seeing the scenes in his images. A special talk with Joel Meyerowitz will take place on 21 April 2026.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photographer, photography journalist, editor and curator and the founder and editorial director of TheAppWhisperer.com, an independent international photography publication established in 2009.Her journalism, criticism and commentary have appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, Popular Photography, Android Magazine, NikonPro, DPReview, Which Digital Camera and Which Camera. She has lectured internationally on photography and mobile art, served as a juror for international photography awards, and exhibited her own photographic work across the UK, Europe, South Korea and the United States.Alongside her editorial work, Joanne's photographic and postgraduate research explores death, grief, memory, representation and social inequality through contemporary photography, participatory practice and visual research methods, with the longer-term aim of developing this work through doctoral research.Through TheAppWhisperer, she continues to publish independent photography journalism spanning contemporary photographic practice, mobile imaging, photographic apps, computational photography and emerging imaging technologies.Joanne is available for editorial commissions, photography projects, judging, curatorial work, speaking engagements, consultancy and selected collaborations.
