EARLIER THIS WEEK, the shortlisted and commended photographers for the largest global photography competition, the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards.

This year, which marks the 10th anniversary of the awards, photographers entered 227,596 images across the awards’ professional, open and youth competitions. Forty-nine countries are represented in the shortlist with photographers from a further 11 countries making it onto the commended list.

Among the professional photographers included in the shortlist was Irishman Ivor Prickett who spent time covering the Battle for Mosul in Iraq.

Iraqis displaced by the fighting in the village of Shora, south of Mosul, reach an army checkpoint on the outskirts of liberated Qayyarah. Ivor Prickett Ivor Prickett

Ivor Prickett Ivor Prickett

“This year, more than any other, the entries to the Sony World Photography Awards have shown great integrity and are characterized by their considered approach.

Beautiful works of photographic art, not snapshots, have been presented to the judges and I am delighted to see that our esteemed juries have chosen to reward the pure skill, artistic interpretation and thoughtfulness of the photographer, rather than simply the subject matter the photographer has captured,” World Photography Organisation CEO Scott Grey commented.