Herald summer photo competition: Picture perfect summer

NZ Herald

22 Jan, 2021 03:38 AM3 mins to read

Chantelle Pettigrew'spicture of her sons relaxing in a hot pool at Kawhia beach is this year's summer photo competition winner.

When Chantelle Pettigrew got the news she had won the Herald summer photo competition she couldn't wait to get home and tell her boys.

"I was leaping around saying guess what, guess what?" she said, "But the kids didn't believe me".

The winning photographed was snapped about 7.30pm in early January of Cole and Liam relaxing in a thermal pool they'd dug on Kawhia beach while Chantelle was off taking pictures of the beach and clouds.

Kawhia is one of the Hamilton family's favourite spots and they visit regularly.

Chantelle had entered the competition over the past few years, "But they were usually people sitting under a pōhutukawa with a bright blue sky," she said. "This is the darkest picture I've entered – the sky is super-dramatic."

Owning a proper camera will be a first for Chantelle - her hobby has been pursued using her phone in recent years, but she has a keen interest and posts regularly to Instagram. She is looking forward to getting out to take pictures with her new Canon 200d and may even use it with her work as a website producer.

Brooke Wilson, 11, thought her brother Zac looked cool splashing in the Pauanui estuary, in a photo that earned her a second place.

The judges' second-favourite picture, by a whisker, is a silhouette of Zac Wilson splashing in the estuary at Pauanui. The photographer, 11-year-old Brooke Wilson, of Auckland, and sister to Zac, said she thought it was a cool image and had to take a few shots to capture the image.

"I took about three or four shots because he was splashing," she said. "I really like taking pictures from the ground and this looked really cool.

Brooke's mum, Jo, says that Brooke has a really good eye for different angles and she is often amazed at the different views she can get of a subject.

"We were both screaming when we got the news," said Jo. "This camera will be amazing and she can really experiment when she goes to intermediate school this year."

Howard Fox captured his niece Chloe in a pure summer joy moment.

Aucklander Howard Fox, our other competition winner, is a keen photographer and has been taking pictures since "35mm film days." He now uses a digital SLR and keeps at least one day free to take pictures during the family's annual summer holiday.

"My sister-in-law was playing in the waves with her daughter Chloe... I was in the water at the time, just close enough to grab the action," he said.

Howard didn't think about entering the competition until someone suggested his pictures were good enough to win.

He ended up submitting two and both were published (his daughter Mollie's photo was published on January 17).

Rob Norton's mishmash of legs and heads picture made a slash with the judges.

The standard of entries has been consistently good for a number of years, but the winning three pictures, from the 3000 or so entries, were stand-out and garnered the most votes from the six judges.

"It doesn't get any easier judging this competition. It's a hard job leaving some out," said Herald chief photographer Dean Purcell. "We're very grateful for the continued involvement of Canon, proving some really great prizes. The winners showed some really good promise which they can exploit with their new cameras."