World Press Photo

From 7 May to 29 June, Palazzo Esposizioni Roma will host an exhibition of finalist photos from the prestigious international photojournalism contest, which has awarded the best professional photographers every year since 1955, helping to shape the history of global visual journalism.

Now in its 69th edition, World Press Photo Exhibition presents a national preview of an extraordinary gallery of the contest’s finalist images, reflecting the most important events of our time, and confirming its status as the event that attests to photography’s great documentary and narrative power and its fundamental role as a historical testimony. The winners of the 2026 edition were selected from more than 57,000 photographs by 3,747 photographers from 141 countries: a total of 42 projects, divided into 3 categories (single photographs, stories and long-term projects) and coming from the 6 regions into which the competition divides global participation (Africa, Asia-Pacific and Oceania, Europe, North and Central America, South America, and West, Central and South Asia).

The selected projects address some of the most pressing social issues facing the world today, particularly the expansion of global power, the climate crisis and conflicts, highlighting stories of resilience, rebuilding and human dignity. The overall winner for 2026 is the American photographer Carol Guzy with Separated by ICE, a photograph taken from his family by immigration officers follofor the *Miami Herald*: the image shows a man, inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York, separated wing a hearing.

The other two finalists works for the Photo of the Year award are Aid Emergency in Gaza by Saber Nuraldin for EPA Images, showing Palestinian civilians climbing onto a truck during the distribution of humanitarian aid, and The Trials of the Achi Women by Victor J. Blue for the New York Times Magazine, a portrait taken outside a court of indigenous Maya Achi women, who survived violence during the Guatemalan civil war, depicting their dignity and struggle for justice.

The exhibition is promoted by the Department of Culture of Roma Capitale and the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, conceived by the World Press Photo Foundation and organised in collaboration with 10b Photography.

Cover image: Farīsāt: Gunpowder’s Daughters © Chantal Pinzi, Panos Pictures