IN PICTURES: Some of the world's best shots

The Sony World Photography Awards are widely recognised as the world's leading global photographic awards programme.

Entries for the 2013 awards are now closed with the winners to be announced April 25, and shortlisted photos in three categories were announced today.

Here are some of the images that have been shortlisted in the Professional category:

Virginia, July 17: US President Barack Obama speaks in the rain during a campaign rally in Glen Allen, Virginia.

Photographer: Brooks Kraft

Afghanistan, May 11: Families visit the shrine of Hazrat Ali, or the Blue Mosque, in Mazar-i-Sharif.

The historical mosque attracts thousands of pilgrims each year.

Photographer: Kuni Takahashi

Syria, October 21: A wounded youth sits on the back of a truck carrying victims and wounded people to hospital following an attack by government forces in the northern city of Aleppo.

Photographer: Fabio Bucciarelli

Nigeria, October 16: A young mentally impaired boy sleeps on the floor in a room for high risk male inmates at a Rehabilitation facility outside Port Harcourt, in the Niger Delta.

In 1999 this facility was turned into a place of incarceration for homeless people with mental illness that were cleared off the streets in a clean-up in anticipation of the FIFA World Youth Soccer Championship.

They have been here ever since.

Photographer: Robin Hammond

All photos via Sony World Photography Awards/AP Images

MORE: Click here for some amazing galleries of shortlisted images.