Rhiannon Yvonne Whitney, Naturally Black and White (PLACES 2025)

This photo was taken at Lake Tekapo, New Zealand early on the morning of the 1st of May 2025. I captured it using a Canon R6 Mark ii and a Tamron 24-70mm lens. It was the township's first snow for the year and my first snow ever, excited and inspired I risked taking my camera out to see if I could capture the magic. Upon finding this little circle of rocks I thought it looked like a lake within the lake, instantly knowing the formation had potential. It was snowing a lot, if you look closely you can see the little streaks and a little chunk in the bottom left corner that was in focus. This was the shot where I realised my lens was internally frosting and regretted my actions (mainly not bringing a lens warmer) after getting the shot I headed straight to the bathrooms to delicately save my gear with a hairdryer, which actually worked like a dream. The slight frosting of the lens has further defused the left side of this, which in the moment concerned me but when I pulled the image up into larger detail I realised that it created something that I don't think I could recreate. Naturally this was a very black and white image with only the trees showing a little bit of deep green and orange.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.