Former NCTJ student wins The Times/Canon Young Photographer of the Year 2009

A former NCTJ student was last night announced The Times/Canon Young Photographer of the Year 2009 – the seventh time in eight years the title has been won by an NCTJ trained photographer.

Matthew Lloyd, 24, who graduated from the NCTJ accredited Academic Year Course in Photo-Journalism at Sheffield College in June 2008, was last night announced the winner of the The Times/Canon Young Photographer of the Year Award 2009.

Matthew received his award and prize of photographic equipment from Lee Bonniface, Canon Consumer Imaging (CCI) UK manager, at the Canon Pro-Photo Solutions exhibition at the Business Design Centre, Islington.

As award winner Matthew has now secured a six-month contract as a staff photographer on The Times along with a year’s membership to the British Press Photographers’ Association.

Matthew said: “I’m delighted, I really didn’t know I was going to win as the judging panel gave me a real grilling at the interview stage.

“I put a lot of work into my application. Just a week before the interview we were given a surprise brief to capture a newsworthy story local to us and I was up all night making sure my final prints were ready.”

From 200 award entries a shortlist of six was chosen and Matthew was joined on the shortlist by two other photographers who studied at Sheffield College, Hannah Kinver and Matt Kirwan.

Matthew added: “Three out of six on the shortlist – the quality of the course at Sheffield College speaks for itself.”

Paul Delmar, photo-journalism course leader at Sheffield College, was at the event to watch Matthew receive his award.

Paul said: “It’s a real honour a former Sheffield College student has won this award, as this is now the seventh year that a young photographer from our course has won.”

The final judging panel included The Times picture editor Paul Sanders, photographers Marc Aspland and Scott Montgomery and Nick Millen of Canon Professional Imaging.

Last year’s winner was James Glossop, who also studied the Academic Year Course in Photo-Journalism at Sheffield College, graduating in June 2006.

Previous winners of the award who learnt their craft at Sheffield College are Susannah Ireland (2007), Christopher Pledger (2006), Clara Molden (2005), Leon Neal (2003) and Katherine Batchelor (2002).