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Professional photographers around the world can now enter the 2008 World Press Photo contest. All entries must be received by 10 January 2008.

World Press Photo has been running the contest since 1955 when its Photo of the Year award was won by Mogens von Haven for his image of a racer falling off his motorcycle during a competition. Last year it was won by Getty Images photographer Spencer Platt for his image of five young Lebanese driving through a bombed area of Beirut. Past winners of the Photo of the Year award include Don McCullin, Eddie Adams and James Nachtwey.

© Spencer Platt, USA, Getty Images

The Photo of the Year-winning image for the 2007 contest.

Images may be submitted as single pictures or stories/portfolios in 10 categories: Spot News, General News, People in the News, Sports Action, Sports Feature, Contemporary Issues, Daily Life, Portraits, Arts and Entertainment, and Nature.

Entries can be made online (from 1 December 2007) or by post. For the 2007 contest 4,460 professional photographers from 124 countries entered 78,083 images.

Detailed contest information in nine languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) is available at www.worldpressphoto.nl/contest. It includes tips on how to enter and a downloadable entry form.

© Michael Nichols, USA, National Geographic Magazine

Image of a serval cat, Zakouma National Park, Chad and winner of the 1st prize in the Nature Singles category.

World Press Photo has also announced that the 2008 contest jury will be chaired by VII photographer Gary Knight. Other members of the jury include MaryAnne Golon, director of photography at Time magazine; Jodi Bieber, a photographer from Noor Images; Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols, a photographer for National Geographic Magazine; Ju Yang, director of photography at Legal Daily in China and Swapan Parekh, a photographer from India. All entries will be judged between 26 January and 8 February 2008.

The winning pictures are composed into a travelling exhibition attracting more than 2 million visitors every year at more than 90 locations worldwide.