Capture the moment winners

August 28, 2024

Capture the moment is IHC's photography competition for New Zealanders who have an intellectual disability or an intellectual disability and autism. The theme of this year's competition was "Nature: the living world".

Monarch butterfly with its wings open sitting on a fuchsia-coloured flower

Beren Hughes from New Plymouth has won first place in the IHC Capture the moment photography competition with his work "Friends Sharing Lunch".

Beren, who works at Atawhai Nursery, loves how the monarch butterfly and bumblebee in his photo seem to be sharing the dahlia flower.

Judges, Shayne Jeffares, Bridgit Anderson and Rachel Callander, said they loved the composition, colour palette, moment captured and superb framing of Beren's work. They agreed the creativity in the title was endearing and added an insightful layer of storytelling to the image.

There were more than 100 entries in the competition and Brody Nielson from Opunake took out second place for his work 'My Beach'. Third place went to Erena Wylie of Kapiti for 'Growth' and Xervier Doney of Wellington won the Youth Award for 'Woodcut Horse'.

The 30 finalists' work will be exhibited at the FOTOFEST main gallery in Hastings from 14 September to 22 October (Hastings Municipal Building, Tama Tūranga Huata Room, 325 Heretaunga Street East). The photographs will be for sale with 100% of the sale proceeds going to the photographer.