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 over 200 countries and territories, was packed with incredible photographs and stories.
I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the exhibition – which is open to the public at Somerset House in London until 4 May 2026 – and its 300 plus works, to hear from the 10 category winners and attend the grand prize-giving. And best of all, I had the opportunity to sit down with wildlife category winner Will Burrard-Lucas to discuss his ‘Crossing Point’ series created in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Park.
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‘For nocturnal creatures there is nothing better than camera traps’
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Will Burrard-Lucas’s wildlife photography is captured using a variety of setups, from daytime shoots with handheld Sony mirrorless gear to camera traps paired with ‘old used DSLRs’ and left in place for long periods of time – the latter being his approach to the ‘Crossing Point’ project.
Low-cost trail cameras are ideal for recording wildlife, but image quality is typically poor and not detailed enough to distinguish specific animals. Burrard-Lucas, on the other hand, uses top quality camera equipment, paired with his proprietary camera trap system.
Burrard-Lucas camera traps are his own ‘Camtraptions’ units and are based on a highly advanced motion sensor – the latest version is the culmination of years of development – which works with a range of leading digital cameras for wired or wireless operation.
For this project, Burrard-Lucas paired the motion sensor wirelessly with a full-frame Canon EOS 6D DSLR camera (mounted with a 35mm lens), which in turn remotely triggered three off-camera flash guns. As he tells me, “Any old DSLR works really well in the camera trap setup—that [the camera] should work well with flash, which is where many mirrorless cameras fall down.”
He had access to cordoned off areas in the national park, where there is a concentration of particularly rare animal species, including rhinoceros – which are notoriously shy. A creek surrounded by lush vegetation was the scene for the vital project, an unusual setting for a park typically known for its wide open plains. “The moment I saw it, I knew it was the right place,” says Burrard-Lucas.
Attached to a tripod and protected from the elements, the camera was left in place for more than six months; the composition you see was determined at the beginning with several considerations. The motion sensor is positioned to trigger the camera when the animal enters that specific part of the frame, and the camera’s focus is manually set to that location, with off-camera lighting ready to illuminate it in low light.
With a project like this, Burrard-Lucas doesn’t need the latest camera equipment with lightning-fast shooting speeds and AI subject-recognition autofocus. No, he needs ‘reliable’ and ‘robust’ equipment with excellent image quality, and it’s also affordable given the number of camera traps he sets up and the environments he works in. Whenever he sees cheap “old used DSLRs, I snap them up,” he tells me.
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Many of the species the park was particularly keen to get more data on are shy, nocturnal creatures, particularly rhinos. As such, lighting is key and there are three flash guns 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 gear, change the batteries and download the images from the camera’s memory card, fresh for another week of motion-triggered shooting.
Rangers thought a single rhinoceros was native to the area, but over the following months they were surprised to identify eight different beasts. Yet it was another discovery that left them ‘flabbergasted’ – when one day a kudu entered the stream. Kudu can be found in other parts of Kenya, but until these unique night images revealed their presence, they were not thought to live in the Masai Mara National Park.
For photographing nocturnal creatures, there is nothing better than camera traps
Will Burrard-Lucas
“You can never predict what’s going to turn up,” says Burrard-Lucas, but over the course of six months his camera photographed a wide variety of wildlife, from rhino to leopard, elephant, giraffe, 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 keen to hear how this alternative approach to setting the scene beforehand for remote shooting differed from when he’s out with the camera in hand and reacting to what he sees in front of him.
“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 really it’s all about lighting.
“For these elusive animals, a photographer could wait 12 hours, but you can’t wait four months, so it’s the only practical way when you have this defined focal point.” For other creatures that don’t stick to trails or are typically out in wide-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 super easy and so many people are repurposing their old DSLR. You don’t need a lot of extra kit; the sensor, a single flash to start with, keeps things simple and leaves it out for a few nights.”
I might just try this camera trap setup for myself; Burrard-Lucas sells all the essentials, apart from the camera, on his Camtraptions website, which also provides an in-depth tutorial. Whether I can photograph something as exciting as a rhinoceros is of course another matter – but you have to start somewhere.
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