Lance Van de Vyver’s wildlife pics win big
Born and raised in New Zealand with a South African father and a Kiwi mother, Lance Van de Vyver boasts no less than 16 awards for wildlife pictures taken at local reserves.
Last year he won two categories in the prestigious 2023 South African Photographer of the Year competition. Van de Vyver’s skills and dedication shone through as he claimed victories in both the mammal and bird categories. “We visited our family in South Africa a lot when we were children and I fell in love with the bush. Ever since I was a child I wanted to work with African wildlife in some way.”
In 2012 Van der Vyver moved to South Africa to become a guide with the dream to one day become a photographic guide. “In 2016 I began working for a dedicated photographic safari company until the pandemic ended that dream,” he says. In 2021, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, he launched a photographic guiding company, Panthera Photo Safaris.
His love for photography started at university, where he was studying zoology at Massey University and later studied photography at UCOL in New Zealand. “We were taking pictures of insects down a microscope, and it was cumbersome, so I bought a cheap camera and a macro lens instead. From there the passion grew.
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I am so very lucky that I have managed to make a career out of my passion. And even more than that, as a photographic guide I am so very lucky that I get to share my passion for wildlife, conservation, and photography with people all around the world,”’ he adds. Van der Vyver says that there is no better feeling than getting a shot you have spent months planning.
“I have been a photographer for the past 16 years, with the last eight of those as a working professional. I am always inspired by nature itself. The beauty of wildlife photography is that no two people will ever capture the same images, and no two moments will ever be the same. Being at the right place at the right time is only half the battle, then being ready and having the right equipment is important,” he says.
He says sometimes the best images have no warning, and they can be over in a fraction of a second. His motto is to live life now. “Do all the things you have always dreamed of as soon as you can; some people plan for the perfect moment and never
