Sossusvlei ©Bernard Pieterse, South Africa, Youth Category Winner, Environment, Sony World Photography Awards 2012

London is gearing up for a month of fantastic photo events organised by the World Photo Organisation. Kicking things off on 26 April will be the Sony World Photography Awards, held at the rather swanky Hilton Hotel on Park Lane. In the run up to these awards, the winners of the Youth and Open competitions have just been announced.

In the Open competition the category winners were:

Architecture: Filippo Di Rosa (Italy)
Arts & Culture: Sanket K (India)
Enhanced: Victor Vargas Villafuerte (Mexico)
Low Light: Natalia Belentsova (Russian Federation)
Nature & Wildlife: Giovanni Frescura (Italy)
Panoramic: Denise Worden (United States)
People: Ana Gregorič (Slovenia)
Smile: Piotr Stasiuk (Poland)
Split Second: Tobias Bräuning (Germany)
Travel: Krzysztof Browko (Poland)

The Youth competition category winners were:

Culture: Kolyaskin Sergey (Russian Federation)
Environment: Bernard Pieterse (South Africa)
Portraits: Karina Sembe (Ukraine)

The overall winners for these competitions, together with the preofessional competitions, will be announced on the big night in London.

There's a selection of the winners' photos on the carousel up there for you to enjoy!