Bristol photographer named world’s best Natural World photographer at 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Will Burrard-Lucas, UK, named world’s best Natural World photographer at 2017 Sony World Photography Awards
•2017 Awards received over 227,000 images from 183 countries
•Photographer of the Year and all Professional category winners announced Thursday 20th April.
•Winning images exhibited at Somerset House, London 21 April – 7 May

The World Photography Oragnisation yesterday announced British photographer Will Burrard-Lucas as the winner of the Professional Natural World category of the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards, the world’s largest photography competition. Judges were challenged to find the best photo series across 10 Professional categories by photographers from around the world.

In his award winning series Will Burrard-Lucas, based in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, used modern day technical equipment to capture spectacular images of African wildlife at night.

Will Burrard-Lucas background

Burrard-Lucas is a professional wildlife photographer best known for creating innovative devices that allow him to gain unique perspectives. Through his work, Will hopes to inspire greater appreciation for the animals that share our planet and encourage conservation action. Will regularly works with top conservation organizations to produce compelling images for use in their fundraising and marketing materials.

Talking about the story behind the series, Will comments: “My aim was to capture never-before-seen images of African wildlife at night and to show nocturnal animals such as lions and hyenas in their true element. The techniques I employed were only made possible by the low-light ability of modern-day digital cameras and by using remote-control devices such as my “BeetleCam”. BeetleCam is a remote-control buggy for my camera which I created to take close-up ground-level photographs of African Wildlife. All of these images were taken in Liuwa Plain National Park, a remote area in the West of Zambia.”

A second British photographer, Kurt Tong, was awarded 2nd place in the Professional Landscape category.

Kurt Tong, 2nd place Professional Landscape category

Originally from Hong Kong, Kurt Tong (b. 1977) is based between Hong Kong and the UK, and was awarded 2nd place in the Professional Landscape category for his stunning series “Sweet Water Bitter Earth”.

Describing the story behind his series, Tong comments: “Chinese people outside of China often struggle with their Chinese identity, with many having an idealized image of what the motherland is like, whether it’s from stories told by our relatives or from the romanticized views of the movies. The reality is often very different, especially given the accelerated speed at which China is changing. It is often this failure to meet our expectations and the vast, often unexpected difference in cultures that alienate us from feeling comfortable and secure with our roots.”

Sony World Photography Awards

Produced by the World Photography Organisation, 2017 sees the 10th anniversary of the Sony World Photography Awards and a decade-long partnership with its headline sponsor, Sony. The Awards recognize and reward the very best contemporary photography captured over the last year, and incorporate four competitions – Professional, Open, Youth and Student Focus.
The 2017 Photographer of the Year title was awarded to Frederik Buyckx from Belgium for his landscape series “Whiteout”. Russian photographer Alexander Vinogradov was named overall winner of the Open competition, which looked for the best single image.

Sixteen-year-old American student Katelyn Wang won the Youth Photographer of the Year title and Michelle Daiana Gentile, Argentina was awarded Student Photographer of the Year.
The 2017 Sony World Photography Awards received over 227,000 entries from 183 countries. Burrard-Lucas and Tong’s success was revealed at an awards ceremony in London attended by international industry experts alongside the winners of all the Awards’ categories.

The winners of the Professional categories are:
• Architecture – Dongni (China)
• Conceptual – Sabine Cattaneo (Switerland)
• Contemporary Issues – Tasneem Alsultan (Saudi Arabia)
• Current Affairs & News – Alessio Romenzi (Italy)
• Daily Life – Sandra Hoyn (Germany)
• Landscape – Frederik Buyckx (Belgium)
• Natural World – Will Burrard-Lucas (UK)
• Portraiture – George Mayer (Russia)
• Sport – Yuan Peng (China)
• Still Life – Henry Agudelo (Colombia)