Sony World Photography Awards – The incredible winners

A paper boat bobs along a fabric sea in this surreal picture. (Sergey Dibtsev)

(Yahoo News) – The first winners of the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards have been announced.

10 extraordinary pictures have been selected as the winners of the ‘Open’ category of the competition, selected from a pool of more than 100,000 entries.

Journalist and photographer Damien Deomolder, chair of the Open competition, said: ‘It has been a pleasure and an inspiration to be exposed to such a volume of great work, and a privilege too that I could share in the personal moments, the joys, tears, life and losses of photographers from all around the globe who recorded their experiences through their pictures.’

The winners of the National Awards, a global contest to find best images taken by photographers in 66 countries, have also been announced.

This year the competition expanded to Cambodia, Nepal, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates for the first time.

Here are some of the most spectacular pictures, taken by both amateur and professional photographers.

A figure emerges from a foggy night in Tarvastu, Estonia. (Hendrik Mndla)

Gentoo penguins hunt in formation in the icy cool waters of Antarctica. (Nadia Aly)

A mother whale teaches her child how to jump. (John Tao)

A beach in San Augustin, Maspalomas, is decorated with unusual wave patterns. (Karolis Janulis)

A Disney-movie castle is reflected in a purple lake in Slovenia. (Ales Krivec)

A child grins as he walks along a railway track sheltering under an umbrella. (Shabir Mian)

Three images lie on top of one another, showing a terrace of houses, a portrait of a woman and a pot of mint. (Miriam Strong)

An eerie image of skeletal trees was one of the Open categroy winners. (Hiroshi Tanita)

This All-American retro shot shows Roy’s Cafe, gas station and motel in California, on the Historic Route 66. (Ralph Graf)