(CNN) — Visiting a gas station is usually an inconsequential part of a road trip.

But German photographer Ralph Graf's stopover in Roy's Café, a gas station and motel along Route 66 in California, (and his ability to transform the scene into an atmospheric painting-like photograph) has landed him the best travel photo award in the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards ' Open categories.

The awards' Open competition handpicked the best single image for each of these 10 categories: architecture, culture, enhanced, motion, nature, portraits, still life, street photography, travel and wildlife.

Dubbed the world's largest photography competition, Sony World Photography Awards has received more than 227,000 images from photographers from 183 countries this year, including more than 105,000 entries for the Open Competition alone.

In addition to these categories, the best photographs taken by local photographers from 66 countries were also chosen and awarded the National Awards in the same competition.

The awards, now in its 10th year, is comprised of four competitions -- Open, Professional, Youth and Student Focus.

All the winning shots from this year's awards will be exhibited at Somerset House, London from April 21 to May 7, 2017.