This year sees the first annual Foto8 awards and showing at the Host Gallery. They've had a flood of incredible entries. There will be 180 finalists exhibited at the exhibition. Judges choose the winner, who will receive a £1000 prize, on 30 July. Here are a selection of some of the best entries.

DANFUNG DENNIS:

Danfung Dennis graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Applied Economics and International Agriculture in 2005. He worked briefly for a business consulting organisation, but soon decided to pursue his passion of photojournalism and took a stringer position at the Beijing Bureau of The Associated Press.  He worked throughout Asia covering breaking news before traveling to Afghanistan in 2006 to cover the increase in fighting and lack of reconstruction and development. He traveled to Iraq in 2007, where the above photo was taken, to cover the US troop surge and has since spent six months working there.

Now based in London, he has worked in over three dozen countries. He will focus his future work on documenting wars, conflicts and critical social and economic issues. His work has been published in Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, The Sunday Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Times, The Sunday Times Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Le Figaro Magazine, L'Express, Der Spiegel, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Phew!

ANDREJ BALCO

In his collection Andrej shows portraits of people from Rio de Janeiro. The collection is just a small part of his project Domésticas, where he explores the coexistence of two different social groups (the house lords and their maids) brought together by work and the way in which they influence and complement each other. The stage provides not only interesting contrast between maids securing their place above the poverty line and the most affluent nobility of the country.

MICHAEL GRIEVE

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne Michael has a BA Hons in Film, Video and Photographic Arts from the Polytechnic of Central London. He graduated with an MA in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster in 1997. He has worked mainly as a feature and portrait photographer for publications such as Weekend Guardian Magazine, Independent Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, Observer Magazine, Le Monde, and Liberation.

His first book, No Love Lost, is about intimacy and dislocation in sexual environments and will be published in 2009. He is currently working on his second book, In Passing, which is a visual and psychological journey that inhabits motorway and airport hotels in England. He also writes about photography for Hotshoe International and 1000 Words Magazine.

SOFIE KNIJFF

After her Baccalaureat at The European School in Luxemburg, Sofie performed as an actor for over seven years. In the meantime she developed an interest in photography and finally studied at the Photo Academy in Amsterdam. she finished her studies in 2007, won the Photo Academy Award the same year and now works as a photographer. She often returns to the Belgian Ardennes where her family lives. Most of the younger generation has left and time seems to stand still. Sofie followed the hunters during the hunting season and was taken by the tradition passed down from generation to generation. In her work she's inspired by stories that touch the unreal.

MICHAEL BODIAM

Michael Bodiam lives in London and spends his time working on a combination of both commissioned and independent photographic projects at home and abroad. His submissions for the Foto8 exhibition come from a series of images taken on a recent trip to Norway. Other recent work includes a project documenting the abandoned interior of the Dickens & Jones store on Regent Street. His work has been exhibited with The Photodebut Group and in 2004 he was a finalist in the Next Level Audi Photography Competition.  See his work at www.michaelbodiam.com

For more on the exhibition and the Host Gallery go here.