Romanian Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi (in picture) is one of three winners in the Youth section of the Sony World Photography Awards. Aged 19, she is the first Romanian to be awarded in the prestigious global photography competition. Dragoi chose traditional Romanian New Year's Eve customs as a subject and her striking photo of men dressed in bearskins won the Culture prize in the Youth section.

Originally from Iaşi, Alecsandra now lives in the UK and is studying photography at the University of Portsmouth.

Open to photographers aged 19 or under, the Youth competition seeks to discover the next generation of talented photographers, according to the World Photography Organization, which runs the event. The other two winners in the Youth competition are Berta Vicente of Spain, in the Portrait category, and Xu Shou Wei of Taiwan, in the Environment section. One Overall Youth Photographer of the Year will be chosen from the three category winners and announced at the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony on April 25.

The World Photography Organization has also announced winners from the Open and 3D competitions, as well as the National winners. “With photographers from as far apart as Chile to Vietnam, the winning images capture in a single shot a huge variety of subjects from the moment before a couple get married to the Mangystau night sky in Kazakhstan and the ‘Fung Shun’ fire dragon dance in Southern China,” said the World Photography Organization.

See Alecsandra's winning photo.

Find out more on the World Photography Organization website.

editor@romania-insider.com

photo source: Alecsandra Raluca Dragoi on Facebook