South African teen Bernard Pieterse wins international photography award
A huge congratulations to South African teenager Bernard Pieterse who won first prize in his category in the Sony World Photography Awards! Bernard’s image, entitled ‘Sossusvlei’, was awarded the top honour in the Environment category in the youth competition of the Awards! The 16-year-old will receive two free tickets to fly to the UK for […]
A huge congratulations to South African teenager Bernard Pieterse who won first prize in his category in the Sony World Photography Awards! Bernard’s image, entitled ‘Sossusvlei’, was awarded the top honour in the Environment category in the youth competition of the Awards!
The 16-year-old will receive two free tickets to fly to the UK for the gala dinner and Awards ceremony at the Hilton Hotel in London’s Park Lane on the 26th April.
His photograph will be displayed as part of the winners’ book, and will be on show in an exhibition at Somerset House in London from 27th April – 20th May, 2012.
Bernard took the winning photo during a school holiday last year with his family when they travelled to Namibia for a 4×4 trip through the desert.
“We visited a lot of places like Sossusvlei, the Fish River Canyon and some Ghost Towns in the Namib desert,” he said.
To capture the beauty of ‘Sossusvlei’, Bernard used a Canon 7d, a tripod and polarizer filter; and took the photo at 3 pm “to get that awesome shadow”.
The high school student was born in Krugersdrop and did a basic photography course with Danie Bester at Digital Photography Courses (DPC) when he turned 15, and went on to win the Visual School’s award for Upcoming Photographer of the Year. Five of his eight images won first place in various categories.
Danie says: “Bernard did a basic photography course with DPC in 2010 and from there on it seems no one can stop him. We are extremely proud. He works really hard and take his photography serious.”
So far two of Bernard’s photos have been published in the Pix magazine and he hopes there’s more to come.
Bernard says: “My biggest dream is to become a Civil Engineer while I live out my passion for photography.”
Below you can view two more photos that Bernard took during the same Namibian holiday – ‘Old Truck’ which was “taken at the Canyon Roadhouse on our way to The Fish River Canyon” and ‘Kokerboom’ which was shot from a low angle to capture the clouds.
