We’re delighted to announce the winners and runners-up of The Mono Awards 2026 presented by Synology.
Run by Australian Photography and Capture, the competition is our annual hunt for the world's best black and white imagery, and continues to celebrate the best monochromatic work.
Now in its eighth year, the competition attracted more than 3,000 entries from photographers across Australia, New Zealand and around the world, with images judged across People, Places and Animals and a total prize pool of $12,500.
This year’s category winners were Carly Goldsmith in the People category, Andy Zakeli in Places and Brooke Pyke in Animals.
Goldsmith took out the People category with a beautifully observed family moment in her image Childhood, while Zakeli impressed the judges with De-Escalation, a quirky street photograph captured in Sydney.
Brooke Pyke’s image Fever shows a gathering of manta rays, and uses black and white to elevate the scene into a beautiful piece of fine art.
People Category: Winner
Carly Goldsmith photographed her People category winning image Childhood with her two youngest children playing together in her backyard one afternoon, unexpectedly capturing a moment of innocent beauty. “As the sun dropped lower in the sky, it cast a beautifully defined shadow across the fence. It was an unposed, ordinary moment, but when I reviewed the image later, it carried more emotional weight than I had realised at the time,” she says.
Places Category: Winner
Andy Zakeli's Places category winning image De-Escalation transforms an everyday scene in Sydney’s Gadigal Station into something visually unexpected, with the escalator, concrete columns and signage creating a strong graphic composition. The image came from a street photography excursion with Zakeli’s TAFE students, where he was experimenting with different angles of the station’s architecture.“I took it a step further for a bit of fun and made the subject headless, almost decapitated by the signage. I like trying to add humour or strange elements to my photos purely to create interest for the viewer,” he says.
Animals Category: Winner
Brooke Pyke was on an ocean safari in Baja, Mexico, and had hoped to document schooling mobula rays for her Animals category winning image Fever. “With marine life, you never know what you might see, and that’s part of the magic. Wildlife photography requires patience, so I always try to keep my expectations low,” she says. “When I plunged in with my camera, I looked down to see around a hundred rays moving slowly across the sand, silhouetted against a glowing white backdrop. Shooting over white sand was an amazing opportunity, with their shapes contrasting beautifully against the ripples.”
The runners-up also covered a broad range of subjects and approaches to monochrome photography.
In Places, Cushla Monk was recognised for her atmospheric photograph of Sydney Harbour Bridge disappearing into fog, with Cathedral of Steel. Ross McLennan was runner-up in People for Jin, an intimate film portrait, while Leanne Silver took second place in Animals with Sniffing for Prey, a striking photograph of a polar bear.
The judging panel for this year’s awards included Anthony McKee, Matt Palmer, Jackie Ranken, Mike Langford, Jay Collier, Dario Gardiman, Meg Hewitt, Paul Blackmore, Liz Ham and Chris Budgeon.
We're hugely grateful to our sponsor Synology, without which we couldn't run The Mono Awards, and of course to all our incredible entrants, who year-after-year continue to express their love for black and white.
The full shortlists, including all the Top 30 images from each category, can be found in the latest issue of Australian Photography (October/November 2026), which will be on newsstands and available digitally at https://www.zinio.com/au in the coming days.
We will also be publishing the Top 50 in each category online at www.themonoawards.com.au in October 2026.
Ross McLennan’s Mono Awards runner-up portrait Jin is part of a series with the working title of Ortho Surfers. “Living in Crescent Head, a surf town, I inadvertently shot a friend’s portrait on 8x10 Ilford Ortho after running out of panchromatic film,” explains McLennan. “I loved the way his tanned skin rendered darker. This self-portrait was made to test a semi-stand development process for the series, helping to extend the film’s dynamic range.
People category: 3rd place
3rd Place, Fiona Bowring, Shadow Play. "I met Jill when she massaged my difficult retirement into something bearable with her emotionally intelligent touch and wry banter, explains Bowring. "Unique amongst friends my age, Jill has maintained her enthusiasm for play, in this case, with the light and dark of the gallery wall. She is delighted to be her own–and my–shadow puppet."
Places category: Runner-up
Places category winner Cushla Monk says a little research into weather and sunrise conditions led to an early-morning trip to the harbour. “What an overwhelmingly beautiful morning it turned out to be,” she recalls. “The constant movement of the fog rolling in across the harbour, the light as the sun rose and the changing angles of the sun’s rays through the steel girders of the Harbour Bridge were all so mesmerising.”
Places category: 3rd place
3rd place, Bruce Westerman, Echoes of the silk road. As the sun slips behind the rugged peaks of the Himalayas, its final rays sweep across the barren slopes of the Nubra Velley, illuminating the ancient Diskit Monastery perched above the valley floor. Below a caravan Bactrian camels, silhouettes etched against the fading light. the scene captures the timeless spirit of this remote corner of Ladakh.
Animals category: Runner-up
Leanne Silver’s Animals category runner-up image, Sniffing for Prey, wowed our judges with its beautiful composition and unique wildlife moment, captured in an especially challenging environment.“High up in the Arctic Circle, on a small ship surrounded by seemingly endless summer sea ice, we spotted a young female polar bear climbing onto an ice floe,” recalls Silver.“She spent some time there, often finding a vantage point to gain height and sniff the air for prey. We were very aware that she would count us on that list if she had the opportunity!”
Animals category: 3rd place
3rd Place, John Peters, f/0.58. This is a female Deinopis Subrufa (more commonly known as a net casting spider). Net casting spiders are more sensitive to light than a barn owl, and have an equivalent aperture of f/0.58, allowing for a significant amount of light absorption. "This one in particular had very recently molted, leaving behind an iris-like look in its posterior median eyes," Peters said.
