I entered the above competition this year… I entered three shots, one in landscape, another in documentary and a final one in sports. I’m not sure which image this email below applies to but it’s one of the three. I suck at entering competitions as I never normally do it, but I’m trying to change that this year. This is a nice hap tip to start things off with.

Dear Lawrence Ripsher,

Thank you for entering into The Sony World Photography Awards. The Honorary Judging Committee for this year’s Awards have been exceptionally impressed with the vast amount of high quality images entered as well as the outstanding amount of entries from photographers around the world.

From a total of 43,745 photographs entered into the amateur competition alone, it was certainly a difficult decision for all our esteemed judges to narrow the many excellent entries down to this shortlist and we thank you for your hard work and commitment to capturing and submitting some amazing images.

Unfortunately your submitted works have not been short-listed this year. However, due to the excellent standard of some of the images it was felt that certain images, whilst not being short-listed, should be commended.

I am delighted to inform you that your work has been selected for commendation. Only 40 images in each of the 9 Amateur categories have been selected for this special commendation, thus this is a tremendous achievement.

The commended images will appear on the website in due course and most importantly, will also be featured in the official 2010 Sony World Photography Awards Winner’s Book.

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Once again thank you for entering into the competition. Good luck in your photography this year and we look forward to reviewing your best image of 2010 in next year’s competition.

With kind regards,

Astrid Merget

Creative Director – World Photography Organisation