Photographer of the Year 2024 presented by Ted's cameras - The winners!

16 December 2024

Perth photographer Donald Chin has won the overall title of Photographer of the Year for 2024, with a striking series depicting Great Crested Grebes, a colourful diving bird species, that he photographed in his home city.

Overall winner and winner, Animal and Nature category, Donald Chin, Qualities of a Great creasted grebe. — Overall winner and winner, Animal and Nature category, Donald Chin, *Qualities of a Great creasted grebe.*

The competition is the largest of its kind for amateur photographers in Australasia, and in its 12th year in 2024 had a prize pool valued at more than $16,000.

Chin’s winning series was captured at Herdsman Lake over a three-month period, and shows the unique birds, which are characterised by their distinctive appearance and intricate courtship displays, in a variety of ways. He describes his aim with the series was to show their unique qualities.

For judges Steve and Ann Toon, the series was not only beautifully captured, but a wonderful reward for Chin’s commitment to his subject.

“It’s rare to see the patience, persistence, and dedication required to complete a series of shots like this in today’s world of instant gratification,” the pair wrote in their comment.

Chin's entry won the Wildlife and Nature category and was also named Overall Winner for 2024, taking home $2,000, plus a Sony 256GB SF-G Tough Series UHS-II Memory Card valued at $799 SRP.

More than 2,800 entries were received in the annual competition which, for the major categories, challenges photographers to shoot four images that work together as a cohesive series.

For 2024, images came from both Australia and New Zealand, with work captured on digital, film and smartphones vying for honours.

Other category winners included a series of emotive self portraits by Natalie Arber, deceptively complex landscapes by Niall Chang, a series of colourful aerials captured in Vietnam by Ben Wood, a mysterious, ethereal series of film portraits by Maddison Fenton, an evocative travel series captured in Budapest's Széchenyi baths by Rosie Lang, an eerie green underwater capture from Mexico by Daniel Vaughan, a quirky, creative image by Bathurst's James Stewart and finally a gorgeous photo of one of Australia's smallest mammals by Junior category winning photographer Austin Ridley-Jarvis.

The special Photographer of the Year edition of Australian Photography magazine will be available in newsstands, delivered to subscribers, and via digital download at Zinio in the coming days. The issue includes Winners, Runners-up and Top 20 entries in each category, except in the smaller Travel category, where only the Top 14 entries appear.

In addition, our winners and runners-up in the competition will be exhibited at Ted's World of Imaging in Sydney in early 2025.. Keep an eye on the Australian Photography website for more information.

We’d like to thank our amazing sponsors Ted’s Cameras, Sony, Gigabyte, Ilford Galerie, Aorus, and the Brownbill Effect – thank you for your support of photographers in Australasia.

To our judges tasked with choosing their favourite images, we hugely appreciate your work in this most challenging of tasks.

A huge thanks to the amazing Alex Cearns OAM, Helen Whittle, Will Patino, Douwe Dijkstra, Drew Hopper, Mandarine Montgomery, Ann and Steve Toon, Anthony McKee, Lisa Michele Burns, Doug Gimesy, Sally Brownbill, Tim Levy, and Petra Leary.

And finally, and most importantly, to all our entrants – thank you. The reason Photographer of the Year has been able to showcase the best work by amateur photographers for more than a decade is because it’s so well supported by photographers like you.

Over the years we’ve seen photographers work to improve their results year-on-year, and then go on to greater things when they do excel in the competition. That we can provide the platform for this is a real honour.

We’ll be back again for the 2025 edition of Photographer of the Year in May.

Winners and runners-up below: