Sony World Photography Awards 2016: Iranian photographer wins top prize for powerful portraits of acid attack victims

Asghar Khamseh also won the Contemporary Issues category for his hard-hitting series

The 'Fired of Hatred' series won Asghar Khamseh the grand prize of $25,000 (Asghar Khamseh)

Iranian photojournalist Asghar Khamseh has been named L’Iris d’Or Photographer of the Year for his harrowing portraits of acid attack victims.

This year’s competition attracted a record-breaking 230,103 submissions, with fourteen professional category winners and finalists announced on Thursday ahead of an exhibition at London’s Somerset House.

Khamseh’s “Fired of Hatred” series also won the Contemporary Issues category while Japan’s Kei Nomiyama came out on top as Open Photographer of the Year with her stunning photograph, “Enchanted Bamboo Forest”.

Kevin Frayer from Canada became the first photographer to win two professional categories in the same year for Environment and People while 18-year-old Sam Delaware from Maine, United States, won Young Photographer of the Year for a beautiful portrait of his sister.

Other winners included French photographers Amelie Labourdette and Julien Mauve with triumphs in the Architecture and Conceptual categories respectively, Greece’s Angelos Tzortzinis with his hard-hitting refugee crisis series In Search of the European Dream and Italy’s Marcello Bonfanti for her portraits of ebola survivors.

'In Search of the European Dream' by Greek photographer Angelos Tzortzinis

There were no UK winners this year, but David Chancellor placed second in the Campaign category and Lucy Nicholson came third for her Environment submission.

The Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition runs at Somerset House, London from 22 April to 8 May.