The winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2026 have been revealed and once again the prestigious competition, which this year attracted 430,000 entries from more than 200 countries and territories, was packed with incredible photographs and stories.
I was lucky enough to be able to preview the exhibition, which is open to the public at Somerset House in London until 4 May 2026, and its more than 300 works, to hear the winners of the 10 categories and attend the dazzling awards ceremony. And best of all, I had the opportunity to sit down with Wildlife category winner Will Burrard-Lucas to talk about his ‘Crossing Point’ series created in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Park.
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‘For nocturnal creatures, there’s nothing better than camera traps’
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Will Burrard-Lucas’ wildlife photography is captured using a variety of setups, from daytime shots with a Sony mirrorless camera in hand to camera traps combined with “old second-hand DSLRs” and left in place for long periods; the latter was his approach for the “Crossing Point” project.
Inexpensive trail cameras are ideal for recording wildlife, but the image quality is often poor and not detailed enough to distinguish specific animals. Burrard-Lucas, on the other hand, uses high-quality photography equipment, along with its self-developed camera trap system.
Burrard-Lucas camera traps are their own ‘Camtraptions’ devices and are based on a highly advanced motion sensor (the latest version is the culmination of years of development) that works with several leading digital cameras for wired or wireless operation.
For this project, Burrard-Lucas wirelessly paired the motion sensor with a full-frame Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera (equipped with a 35mm lens), which in turn remotely triggered three off-camera flashes. As he tells me, “Any old DSLR camera works great in the camera trap setup; [the camera] “It needs to work well with flash, which is where many mirrorless cameras fail.”
He had access to closed areas of the national park where there are a concentration of particularly rare wildlife species, including the notoriously shy rhinoceros. A stream surrounded by lush vegetation was the setting for the vital project, an unusual setting for a park typically known for its wide plains. “The moment I saw it, I knew it was the right place,” Burrard-Lucas says.
The camera was fixed to a tripod and protected from the elements and remained in place for over six months; The composition you see was decided from the beginning with multiple considerations. The motion sensor is positioned to activate the camera when the animal enters the specific part of the frame, and the camera’s focus is manually adjusted to that point, with off-camera lighting ready to illuminate it in low-light conditions.
With a project like this, Burrard-Lucas doesn’t need the latest camera equipment with incredibly fast shooting speeds and autofocus with AI subject detection. No, you need “reliable” and “robust” equipment with excellent image quality, and that is also affordable given the number of camera traps you install and the environments in which you work. Every time he sees “cheap old used DSLRs, I buy them,” he tells me.
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Many of the species the park was especially interested in learning more about are shy, nocturnal creatures, especially rhinos. As such, lighting is key and there are three flashes positioned to illuminate the subject and the immediate surrounding vegetation.
With the setup in place, Burrard-Lucas had trained the rangers to do a weekly check on the equipment, change the batteries, and download the images from the camera’s memory card, fresh for another week of motion-activated capture.
Rangers believed a single rhino resided in the area, but over the next few months they were surprised to identify eight different beasts. However, there was another discovery that left them “stunned”: one day, a kudu entered the stream. Kudu can be found in other parts of Kenya, but until these unique night photographs revealed their presence, they were not thought to live in the Masai Mara National Park.
To photograph nocturnal creatures, nothing better than camera traps
Will Burrard-Lucas
“You can never predict what’s going to show up,” says Burrard-Lucas, but over the course of six months his camera photographed a wide range of wildlife, from rhinos to leopards, elephants, giraffes, the surprise kudu and many more.
For me, the thrill of photography is being there and experiencing what I’m photographing in the moment, so I was really looking forward to hearing how this alternative approach of setting the stage in advance for remote capture differs from when you’re out there with your camera in hand, reacting to what you’re seeing in front of you.
“They both have their place for different species and different projects,” says Burrard-Lucas, “but for me, for nocturnal creatures, there’s nothing better than camera traps, because it really comes down to lighting.
“For these elusive animals, a photographer might wait 12 hours, but you can’t wait four months, so it’s the only practical way when you have this focal point defined.” For other creatures that don’t stick to trails or are typically found in open savannas, a camera trap is much less useful.
I ask Burrard-Lucas about camera trap photography for beginners and he tells me: “It’s very easy and a lot of people are making new use of their old DSLR camera. You don’t need a lot of extra equipment – the sensor, a single flash to start, makes things simple and just leave it out for a few nights.”
I might try this camera trap setup for myself; Burrard-Lucas sells all the necessary items, except the camera, on his Camtraptions website, which also provides detailed instructions. Whether I can photograph something as exciting as a rhino is a different matter, of course, but you have to start somewhere.
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