Thursday brought the awards evening for the 2014 New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year and Edin added to her incredible year by winning the title of New Zealand Geographic Young Photographer of the Year 2014 with another of her fabulous high key images of a white bird on a white background. This is one of New Zealand’s top photography competitions open to professionals and amateurs and includes categories for Wildlife, Landscape, Society & Culture and Photo Story. The photographer under the age of 21 with the strongest image across all categories takes the Young Photographer title.

It was a fabulous evening with a great presentation by Chris McClennan on his photography in the Arctic, Alaska, Southern Africa and Pacific islands, good food and the excitement of the presentations culminating, for us, with the penultimate award which was Edin’s. The most surprised winner was Peter James Quinn who took out the top award without being a finalist in any of the categories as this award goes to the photographer with the strongest portfolio of images. See the NZ Geo website for all the fabulous images and results.

What made this win extra special was the fact that the image was taken with a lens that Edin had inherited from her Grandad and an old hand-me-down camera. Gear that could be bought for around $1000 proving the point that you don’t need expensive gear to make top bird images.

This post captures the feeling of the evening for us better than my words can express.