However, it was a snap taken by 14-year-old Mabel Tennent, of Mosgiel, at her school that won the Botanical Youth category and allowed her to claim the overall Photographer of the Year award.
Mabel’s winning photo was taken as part of an assignment by her teacher at Taieri College and is called Raindrops.
The win makes her the first girl to win the competition.
She won a $1500 voucher to spend on Canon products.
Mabel said winning was "awesome", and was just the beginning of her future in photography.
"Our teacher sent us out, and I saw the raindrops and just thought ‘that looks pretty’, so I took a photo of them."
The annual photography competition marked its 25th anniversary and drew a record-breaking 5453 entries across four categories.
The number of entries surpassed the past record in 2022 of 3646 entries.
The photo categories were wildlife, botanical, landscapes and a pop-up category of black and white.
Competition judge and photography exhibition designer Shanaya Cunningham said the quality of this year’s entrants was incredible.
"That made it difficult to not only to choose the finalists, but also to create a shortlist in general.
The judging panel consisted of nationally recognised photographers Douglas Thorne, Paul Le Comte and Craig McKenzie, as well as Dunedin locals Izumi Schmidt, Nick Beadle, Ms Cunningham, Russell Drew and Gregor Richardson.
The school holidays also bought in a huge number of primary school entrants, who got out into nature to try their hands at snapping the perfect shot.
The winning photo, all the category winners and runners-up and more will be on display at the museum in the free "25 Years Captured" exhibition.
