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The shortlist for the 2012 Sony World Photography Awards Student Focus competition was announced on Feb. 7.

Student Focus has established itself as the world's most high-profile student photography award and is open to universities worldwide that run a photography programme.

This year's student competition brief was based on the philosophy of the "haiku" - which is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables.

The photographers were asked to take on a role similar to that of a haiku poet and create and submit one image that depicts a "fleeting moment" or the "decisive moment".

This resulted in some impressive and very professional-looking student-shot images... of a perfectly captured brief moment in time.

Ten photographers from each of the shortlisted institutions have been chosen to take part in the final competition. The winner will be announced at the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony at London's Park Lane Hilton Hotel, on April 26.

Check out the shortlisted pictures...