Australia's Top Emerging Photographers - winners revealed
Australia’s best emerging talent
Capture’s seventh annual Australia’s Top Emerging Photographers awards showcases the very best of Australia’s emerging photographic talent, as chosen by 46 distinguished professionals from Australia and abroad. The Top Emerging Photographers awards recognise, encourage and promote talented Australian photographers in the early stages of their photographic careers. In 2015, the competition attracted an impressive 607 entries across the nine categories, comprising 3,642 images.
Recently, we announced the overall winner of the competition online, Sheldon Pettit. Below you'll find a full list of all category winners, runners-up and finalists.
How the competition works
To be a contender for the title of Australia’s Top Emerging Photographer 2015, photographers with less than four years’ full-time experience working as a professional photographer were invited to submit portfolios of six images across any of the nine categories. After an initial review of entries by the editor of Capture magazine, a shortlist was produced which was then voted on by the judges. They then assessed category winners to determine the overall winner.
To our sponsors
Thanks to our major sponsor, Fujifilm, and all our category sponsors, which included CATC Design School, EIZO, Momento Pro, the National Portrait Gallery, Sally Brownbill, SUNSTUDIOS, Ted’s Cameras, Western Digital and Zenfolio, for their immense generosity and commitment to supporting emerging photographic talent. This year the prize pool for the Top Emerging Photographers Awards was worth almost $12,000, plus cash prizes of $9,500. The Emerging Photographer of the Year receives the grand prize – a Fujifilm X-T1 and XF 18-135mm lens valued at $2,599, plus $5,000. Category winners receive prizes from our category sponsors.
To see all the winning images and invaluable judges’ comments on how to improve one's submission, grab a copy of the May/June issue. Full portfolios of the winners and runners-up, as well as an image from each of the finalists, appears in the iPad edition.
The winners
Overall winner
Sheldon Pettit
Advertising
Winner
Marcelo Canizares
Runner-up
Dylan Evans
Finalists
Ailsa Fox
Julia Nance
Jeremy Shaw
Michaela Skovranova
Judges
Damien Bredberg, Chris Budgeon, Adrian Weinbrecht, Andreas Smetana.
Category prize: Detailed folio appraisal by Sally Brownbill valued at $330.
Architecture
Winner
Gregory Evans
Runner-up
Mihai Florea
Finalists
Marion Abada
Mitch Fong
Michelle Knowles
Stuart Marlin
Matt Trewin
Kirsten Woodforth
Judges
Peter Barnes, Brett Beyer, Tim Griffith, William Long, George Apostolidis.
Category prize: Manfrotto 190XB & 804RC2 tripod kit valued at $299, courtesy of Ted’s Cameras.
Documentary/Photojournalism
Winner
Matty Smith
Runners-up
Ingetje Tadros
Sam Edmonds
Finalists
Nic Bezzina
Judith Conning
Reema Hamdan
Lynette Letic
Judges
Christian Als, Craig Greenhill, Nick Moir, Raphaela Rosella, Vincent J. Musi, Lisa Maree Williams.
Category prize: Credit voucher worth $500 from Momento Pro.
Editorial/Fashion
Winner
Lori Cicchini
Runner-up
Ren Pidgeon
Finalists
Levon Baird
Daniella Haggar
Tom Harfield
Lara Hotz
Lorraine Marguerite
Judges
Georges Antoni, Kristian Dowling, Simon Lekias, Lisa Maree Williams, Alexia Sinclair.
Category prize: Full day studio hire at SUNSTUDIOS to the value of $2,000, plus $1,500 worth of gear hire.
Landscape
Winner
Sheldon Pettit
Runner-up
Dylan Fox
Finalists
Debbie Fowler
Michael Harris
Tania Malkin
Priyaji Peiris
Kieran Stone
Stuart Westmore
Judges
George Fetting, Tony Hewitt, Mike Langford, William Long, Nick Melidonis, Alex Strohl.
Category prize: EIZO ColorEdge CG247 photo-editing monitor valued at $2,800.
Portrait
Winner
Yunis Tmeizeh
Runner-up
Ingetje Tadros
Finalists
Troy Baird
Nicola Bernardi
Tori Heron
Ona Janzen
Emma McEvoy
Conor Richardson
Nicole Wells
Dane Wang
Judges
Peter Brew-Bevan, Jason Capobianco, George Fetting, Greg Gorman, William Long, Alexia Sinclair, Hugh Stewart.
Category prize: National Portrait Gallery prize pack valued at $295.
Sport
Winner
Ed Sloane
Runner-up
Steve Wall
Finalists
Jayson Fong
Manuel Goria
Aaron Walker
Judges
Steve Christo, Chris McGrath, Donald Miralle, Quinn Rooney, Krystle Wright.
Category prize: My Passport Wireless Wi-Fi Mobile Storage 1TB and My Cloud Personal Cloud Storage 3TB, valued at $528.
Student
Winner
Cyndi Briggs
Runner-up
Kirilee Brown
Finalists
Donna Fraser
Tania Gioffre
Daniel Gregoric
Eliza Harrison
Breanna Sheather
Judges
Sally Brownbill, Kristian Dowling, Catherine Karnow, Fiona Wolf.
Category prize: A GoPro Hero 4 valued at $499.99, courtesy of CATC Design School.
Wedding
Winner
Joseph K. Sarkodie
Runner-up
Lucy Spartalis
Finalists
Jerome Cole
Anthony Hoang
Lara Hotz
Tricia King
Jai Long
Zoe Morley
Fiona Vail
Judges
Dean Bentick, Jackie Chan, Daniel Griffiths, James Simmons, Susan Stripling.
Category prize: Zenfolio Premium Business 2-year subscription valued at $480.
