One of 21 World Press Photo Contest Winners: 1st prize Contemporary Issues Stories, José Cendón, Spain, Psychiatric hospital inmates, Burundi and DRC, 2006.

The World Press Photo contest aims to highlight the best photos that made it to mainstream media each year. The jury selections are good, sharp and relevant. And in many ways, it is good that they limit the number of awards to only 21 photos each year. Lens Culture is pleased to present all of the winning photos here again, for the third year in a row.

The range of subject matter and photographic approaches is impressive. This year we see some of the usual topics: war, destruction, suffering, famine, invasion, natural disaster, political resistance, celebrity portraits, and sports action shots. We also get some others that are particularly telling.

The top prize winner for Photo of the Year is cyincal and surreal: young wealthy Lebanese enjoying some local war-disaster tourism while riding in their bright red shiny convertible, oogling the still-smoking wreckage in Beirut, and snapping photos with their mobile phones. It's a rich and complicated photo that sticks with you.

The winners also include some fresh street photography, and some hyper-real biological oddities that seem more like Joan Fontcuberta fabrications rather than living and breathing creatures.