Sony World Photography Awards - striking images from 2016

Photographer Amélie Labourdette’s 'Empire of Dust' series of photographs was taken in the south of Italy, where financial crises and embezzlement have created an architectural aesthetic of incompleteness. (Amélie Labourdette/SWPA)

A little girl arrives in Greece as a refugee after making the perilous sea journey from the Middle East. (Angelos Tzortzinis/SWPA)

Different generations lounge on a pier on holiday. (Andrea Rossato/SWPA)

Freddie Gray, a black, 25-year-old man and a resident of Baltimore's Gilmor Houses housing project, died in police custody on April 19, 2015 after being arrested days earlier for possessing a switch blade knife. His death sparked massive protests throughout Baltimore in an attempt to bring attention to the city's systemic inequality and the alleged, routine excessive force used by police. (Andrew Burton/SWPA)

TransBrasil is an ongoing project, which aims to deepen gender identities issues from documentary photography perspective. It proposes to approach different social and cultural expressions that question the binary schemes masculine/feminine to understand the gender and identity process. (Jetmir Idrizi/SWPA)

A participant in an underground Hardcore Wrestling Match in Mexico City leans on the ropes. (Annick Donkers/SWPA)

Coal used to be the gold of West Virginia, US. But new environmental regulations and a with lower price on coal led to huge redundancies and the coal became a curse for many of the cities in West Virginia.. (Espen Rasmussen/SWPA)

A victim of an acid attack in Iran holds a picture of fellow victims. (Asghar Khamseh/SWPA)

The Eagle Hunting festival, organised by the local hunting community, is part of an effort to promote and grow traditional hunting practices for new generations in the mountainous region of western China that borders Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia. (Kevin Frayer/SWPA)

Tibetan nomads face many challenges to their traditional way of life including political pressures, forced resettlement by China’s government, climate change and rapid modernisation. (Kevin Frayer/SWPA)

Named for its desert, Namibia is one of the least densely populated places on earth, visually defined by rich colours in a barren, yet constantly changing landscape. (Maroesjka Lavigne/SWPA)

This photographer’s series captures portraits of the silver medal winners just after loosing their final at the Zealand boxing Championships held in Copenhagen in March. (Nikolai Linares/SWPA)

A woman lies still on a beach without a care in the world. (Alejandro Beltrán/SWPA)