Notts student scoops top prize at photo awards

A Nottingham student has won a top photography prize.

Matt Wood, a Corporate Social Responsibility Masters student at the University of Nottingham, won a Guardian Witness Award for a photograph he took on holiday in Kenya last year.

The photograph shows an assistant sat in front of a row of hanging raw meat in Mombasa.

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Matt Wood studied his undergraduate degree in Management Studies and Spanish at UoN before beginning his masters and had the opportunity to study on a year abroad in Valencia, Spain.

Matt only sees photography as a hobby and in an interview with The Nottingham Post shared that he was on a “beach holiday really” but took the snap to remember “some of the surrounding culture” as it “really captures some of the horrendous conditions which food is kept in Mombasa.”

After entering the photo into the competition as part of the food category he doubted he would win but judges were impressed with the entry, seeing it as “the clear winner” amongst thousands of entries.

David Mitchell at the ceremony with Matt Wood (top row, far left) Image via TheGuardian.com

Actor and Comedian David Mitchell presented him with the trophy at a ceremony in  London.

Matt described the photo to The Guardian as: “Stifling heat combined with the copious cuts of nondescript meat makes Mombassa’s central meat market hard to stomach for the average tourist. This seller seemed to have found somewhere to escape it all.”