George Dian Balan is a multi-award winning fine art wildlife photographer, scientist, author and inspirational speaker specialised in world record and world class individuals in iconic megafauna species.
He creates timeless images by using an immersive approach, portraying as never seen before giants that have captured our imagination. The resulting frames are cinematic, of the kind that one expects from a Jurassic Park opening scene. The artistic question he asked himself is: if a Statue, a Monument were to be raised to a species, what would that look like?
Dian is the world leading authority in big tusked Asian and African elephants and the most awarded photographer in this field.
About 45 of his images with big-tusked elephants were distinguished in prestigious photography competitions (usually multiple times) such as the Mono Awards Australia (Winner, 2025), Fine Art Photography Awards London (Second Prize, 2025), Memorial Maria Luisa (Honourable Mention, 2025), Monochrome Awards (Highly Honoured, 2025), MontPhoto (Second Prize, 2024), GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Highly Commended, 2024), Natures Best Washington (Highly Honored, 2024), reFocus Awards (Nominee, 2024), MonoVisions Awards (Honourable Mention, 2024), Monochromatic Awards (Finalist, 2024), Black and White Awards (Finalist, 2024), HIPA (Dubai, Finalist, 2024), Px3 Paris (Silver Medal, 2023) or again FAPA (Finalist, 2018). In addition, Dian won Photographer of the Year: Wildlife in reFocus Awards (NewYork, 2024), he was a First Prize Winner (Montier-en-Der, 2020) and Grand Winner (Untamed, 2018).
His pictures are standard-setting, exquisite and compelling. They were published among others by Australian Photography, Nat Geo, BBC Earth, GEO, Forbes, Geographical, It’s Colossal, Luxury Travel, Professional Photo, Wanderlust Travel, Wild Planet Photo Magazine, Asian Geographic, Africa Geographic, Cranium, Ancient Origins, Nat’Images, Peta Pixel and Pachyderm, including several times as covers.
Dian innovates a lot and uses a plethora of photography techniques, including remotes and camera traps. He is the first to take several award-winning images of elephants as seen from inside a baobab tree.
Furthermore, he is the author of the award-winning bookThe World As It One Was (2020), which combines arresting visuals with solid science. He was a three-time contributor to Prints for Wildlife, the world’s most financially successful fundraising of its kind, and one of his Super Tusker images was a lead visual for the 2025 campaign.
Dian is an accomplished speaker on biodiversity and environmental issues at festivals and events in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.For him, a thorough research is key when choosing his photographic subjects or deciphering the megafauna science. He discovered for the first time in more than 100 years two New World Records: the longest Asian elephant tusk, at almost 3.3 m and thickest Asian elephant tusk, at 58 cm (seeThe World Records in Asian Elephants, downloadable as pdf at SSRN).
2025:
personal exhibition, The World As It Still Is, Brussels
part of the winners’ exhibition, European Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Stadtmuseum Schleswig
featured in the documentary Mammoth Hunters, Yukon
2024:
part of the winners’ exhibition, MontPhoto Fest, Lloret del Mar
2022:
judge, Jackson Wild film festival, World Wildlife Day Film Showcase: Recovering Species
2020:
book author, The World As It Once Was, ISBN 978-2-8052-0590-3
2019:
curator, exhibition Europes’ Wild Heart, Brussels
2017:
personal exhibition, The World As It Once Was, Brussels
