Twenty-one images featuring "real photographs of real life" have gone on display at Queenstown Airport, including an award-winning image from Wanaka photographer Andy Woods.
The New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year Competition exhibition arrived in the resort last week and was put up on Friday.
The images are all either finalists or winners over four categories, chosen from 3000 entries received last year.
It is the first time the exhibition has been shown in Queenstown, which is the only South Island destination to host it.
Mr Woods' photograph of the Buller's albatross was highly commended in the wildlife category. The close-up image of the broad-winged seabird has pride of place in the exhibition at Queenstown Airport. The exhibition of images extends from international arrivals to the baggage claim area.
A pilot by profession, Mr Woods told the Queenstown Times he had been a photographer for almost 40 years, but had only been doing it professionally for about five years.
His stunning image of the Buller's albatross was taken on Snares Islands, the northernmost group of New Zealand's subantarctic islands, about 100km south of Stewart Island.
He had travelled to the island with his brother-in-law, Paul Sagar, a Niwa scientist who was going with other scientists to conduct the annual survey of Buller's albatrosses, one of the smaller species known as mollymawks, and came across the nesting bird.
"I was about 1m away [from it]," Mr Woods explained.
"Because they don't have any predators, they're very docile."
The image of the beautiful bird with "amazing" smoky-grey "airbrushed" markings was shot with a Canon 5D camera with a slow shutter speed, to cope with ambient light.
Mr Woods said the lens was stopped down about f4, giving a shallow depth of field.
"It's certainly an amazing opportunity and a privilege to go down to the Snares. It's a wildlife area and it's permit-only to access the island [through the Department of Conservation].
"I've entered this competition before, but I didn't get into the finalists because the calibre is so high.
"I was lucky with this one. There's something about the eye."
Another South Island link with the competition was the highly commended photo of Nugget Point lighthouse, Otago coast, an image captured by Katrin Koervers.
The exhibition will remain at Queenstown for about two weeks, before heading back to Auckland.
The winners
Photographer of the Year: Brett Phibbs
Young Photographer of the Year: Dougal Hilson
SOCIETY AND CULTURE
Winner: Brett Phibbs
Runner-up: Brett Phibbs
Highly commended: Jocelen Janon, Amos Chapple, Dean Purcell and Greg Bowker
LANDSCAPE
Winner: Robert Dickinson
Runner-up: Laurie Williams
Highly Commended: Vaughan Brookfield, Katrin Koervers, Andris Apse and John Doogan
WILDLIFE
Winner: Mazdak Radjainia
Runner-up: Eugene Polkan
Highly commended: Mark Dwyer, Richard Robinson and Andy Woods
PHOTOSTORY
Winner: Tim Cuff
Runner-up: Stephen Belcher
