The Sony Alpha Awards, now in its third year, showcases the very best of Australian and New Zealand photography using the Sony Alpha camera range. Over 5000 stunning images were submitted from both professional and amateur photographers, for the chance to be recognised and celebrated for their talents. This year's competition saw Kiwis triumph with established photography talent and new-blood being recognised as winners.

The overall Grand Prize and also the Portrait category was awarded to Auckland photographer, Ilan Wittenberg. Ilan made New Zealand his home in 2001 and took up photography in 2011, going on to become a professional photographer who has garnered an impressive collection of photography awards of which the Sony Alpha Awards is his most recent achievement.

The concept for Ilan's stunning portrait shot was created in collaboration with his model. He explains, "the idea was to create a cracked earth background using drought as the theme" and elaborates "I love Alicia's eyes, she looks so fragile and vulnerable. Her beautiful eyes are truly the windows to her soul".

This year’s Sony Alpha Awards also saw a brand new Youth competition, empowering budding photographers (aged between 11-18 years old) to showcase their talents by submitting a photo via Instagram. 

The Youth competition saw an outstanding response across Australia and New Zealand, with two Kiwi finalists chosen to go head to head in a photo challenge that saw both finalists flow to Australia and take to the streets of Sydney to try and capture a winning shot. (Click here to see a video of the photo challenge.)

Sony Photography Ambassador and Travel Photographer, Tyson Mayr chose the overall winner, 17 year-old Keeley Watson from Auckland. Keleey says of her image, "I wanted to try and take a street photography shot of something abstract but also include some people in it."

Sony Alpha Awards Youth category judge Tyson Marr said, “It was extremely tough to choose the overall winner as both of the finalists’ photos were amazing, particularly as they only had two hours to capture a winning image. I admire both of them for taking on the challenge and encourage them to continue on their photography journey.” 

The winners across the seven categories were carefully selected by Sony Global Digital Imaging Ambassadors and professional Australian photographers, Craig Parry and Mark Galer. Each category winner received $2000 worth of Sony camera gear, and the Grand Prize Winner, Ilan Wittenberg, received a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Tanzania with World Photo Adventures, plus $3,000 of Sony Alpha gear.

The category winners for the 2018 Sony Alpha Awards were:

• Abstract: Jingshu Zhu
• Editorial: David Sickerdick
• Landscape: Grant Galbraith
• Macro: Chris Cope
• Nature: Robyn Waterhouse
• Portrait: Ilan Wittenberg (Grand Prize Winner)
• Sport: Kian Bullock
• Youth: Keeley Watson

Please click here for the full list of winners and runner ups.