Hay on Wye Photography Competition Winner .
The Hay on Wye competition is a long‑standing photographic exchange between the Marlborough Camera Club here in New Zealand and the Hay on Wye Camera Club in Wales. Every year, the hosting duties alternate, giving each club the chance to shape the event with a unique theme and atmosphere. For 2023, the Welsh club took the lead, selecting Lines as the creative focus. It’s a deceptively simple theme, one that invites photographers to explore structure, rhythm, and the subtle ways lines guide the eye through a frame.
Each club submits twenty images from its members, creating a combined field of forty photographs that span landscapes, architecture, abstract work, and intimate studies of everyday life. It’s always a diverse and inspiring collection, showcasing the different ways photographers interpret a shared idea. Being part of this exchange is something I look forward to every year; it’s a chance to see how artists from opposite sides of the world respond to the same challenge.
I’m incredibly proud to share that my image, Autumn in the Vineyard, was selected as the top photograph out of all forty entries. The piece captures the quiet geometry of vineyard rows as they shift into their autumn colours, with lines of gold and rust drawing the viewer deeper into the scene. To have this image recognised in an international setting, especially in a competition built on friendship, creativity, and shared passion, means a great deal to me.
Autumn in the Vineyard