A photographic artist from Wānaka has won two awards at the prestigious New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year Awards 2024.

Richard Young was the winner in two major categories at this year’s awards: the landscape category and the wildlife category.

“This is my first time entering the competition in several years, so it's particularly rewarding to have my work recognised,” Richard said. 

The landscape category winner catches a local scene: leaves falling from poplar trees next to the Clutha/Mata-Au River on a misty autumn morning.

Richard said he has photographed the same patch of woodland every autumn since 2017.

“The concept for this photograph arose from knowing these trees and developing my expression of them. It forms part of a larger body of work called ‘Metaphor’ which explores my relationship to trees within the landscape.”

A photograph of two emperor penguins leaping out of a hole at the edge of an ice pack earned Richard his second award at the competition.

Emperor penguins burst from a hole in an ice pack in Antarctica in Richard’s second winning photograph.

He captured the scene at the McMurdo Sound in Antarctica after hours of observation.

Richard’s landscape-focused work has won awards in numerous international competitions, including Best Landscape at the Banff Mountain Photography Competition in 2010, and his work has been widely exhibited across New Zealand, Canada, America and England.

He is a full-time nature and landscape photographer and the founder of New Zealand Photography Workshops, which provides photography workshops, courses and tours.

New Zealand Geographic said there were more than 6,000 entries in this year’s competition, and “33 deserving winners”.

The winning photographs are on display in Britomart in Auckland until the end of November and they will be published in the November/December issue of New Zealand Geographic Magazine. 

PHOTOS: Richard Young