Grand Prize Winner: Honestly humbled and feeling quite emotional — and still struggling to quite believe it — to have been named the Overall Winner of the 2026 Australian Photographic Prize. And the title of Australian Professional Photographer of the Year for 2026! I’m genuinely blown away.
With my entries this year, I was incredibly fortunate to receive two category-winning awards — Wildlife Category, with a clean sweep of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, and Birds Category, with 1st and 3rd places. Then winning the Living World Division with my photograph ‘Room with a Storm View’, before being awarded the overall title of Australian Professional Photographer of the Year 2026!
The photograph that ultimately won the overall title was taken in northern Iceland, featuring an Arctic fox in the middle of a winter storm. It is a photograph I had previsualised for a very long time. I knew the image I wanted to make, but it took four years of returning, waiting, searching and being patient before everything finally came together. When you spend so much time chasing a photograph that exists first in your imagination, finally seeing it come to life is incredibly special. Having that image recognised in this way makes it even more meaningful.
A huge thank you to everyone who makes the Australian Photographic Prize possible — the organisers, judges, sponsors and everyone working behind the scenes to create such an incredible platform for Australian and international photographers. It is a genuine privilege to be recognised alongside so many incredibly talented photographers who are producing an extraordinarily high standard of work. Looking through the finalists and winners this year, I was reminded just how much talent there is in Australian photography.
Congratulations to every finalist, category winner and fellow award recipient. There were some truly exceptional photographs. And, most importantly, thank you.
Thank you to everyone who has supported my photography over the years — those who follow my work, collect my images, join me on expeditions and workshops, encourage me, challenge me and continue to share in this incredible journey. After more than three decades of photographing wild places around the world, I’ve learned that the photographs that mean the most are rarely the easy ones. They are the photographs that demand patience, persistence, failure, return visits and sometimes years of waiting. This one certainly did.
To have that journey recognised in this way is something I will never take for granted. Thank you. Truly.
You can watch the full live-stream of the presentation and awards below:
The accumulation of points in this year’s Australian Photographic Prize also had me leapfrog the Affiliate category and jump straight to Laureate. You can read about the Laureate program HERE. I am quite a big fan of these type of programs as they encourage growth and a need to innovate in our photographic journey. I’ve already accumulated enough points for my Laureate accreditation and am well on my way to Laureate II at this point.
What is next for the Australian Photographic Prize and me: Honestly, I am a little unsure at this point. This recognition and these awards are still sinking in and will take me some time to process such a huge result. Winning the overall Grand Prize and being titled Australian Professional Photographer of the Year, as well as the Living World Division Winner, Wildlife category winner and Birds category winner, is already a pretty high bar, and I am not sure I can do better than that.
Reflecting on my entries this year, what keeps me coming back to these competitions is an inner desire to keep improving my photography, tell emotive stories, communicate through my photographs, and continue my artistic journey. I feel I accomplish at least a small part of that by continuing to enter, and I will likely continue to do so.
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