The World Press Photo Exhibition returns to Royal Festival Hall from 7 November to 26 November, celebrating this year’s best international press photography. “Bringing together award-winning photographs from around the world which capture the most powerful, moving and sometimes disturbing images of the year,” the show will be exhibited in 45 countries.

Above image: Carla Kogelman, the Netherlands.
1st Prize People – Observed Portraits Stories. 19 July 2012, Hannah and Alena, two sisters living in the rural village of Merkenbrechts, Austria.

Goran Tomasevic, Serbia, Reuters
1^st Prize Spot News Stories. 30 January 2013, Damascus, Syria. Syrian rebel fighters take cover amid flying debris and shrapnel after being hit by a tank shell fired towards them by the Syrian Army in the Ain Tarma neighborhood of Damascus.

Peter Holgersson, Sweden
1st Prize Sports Feature Stories. Swedish athlete Nadja Casadei has participated in the World and European Championships in heptathlon. In autumn 2013, she was diagnosed with cancer and by January 2014 she completed her chemotherapy. She has continued to train throughout her illness, hoping to be healthy and ready by the summer for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. This is her on 19 December 2013 in Lidingö, Sweden, feeling better just before her last treatment.

Markus Varesvuo, Finland
2nd Prize Nature Singles. 9 March 2013, a flock of Guillemots (Uria aalgae) in a snowstorm in Vardo, Norway.

Steve Winter, USA, for National Geographic
1st Prize Nature Stories
2 March 2013, Los Angeles, USA. A cougar walking a trail in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park is captured by a camera trap. To reach the park, which has been the cougar’s home for the last two years it had to cross two of the busiest highways in the US.