Your Best Shot: August 2025 - the winners!
Your Best Shot is a photo competition open to Australian residents. There's a different theme every couple of months, and a selection of the winning shots will be published in AP mag and online.
Each issue, AP's Editor Mike O'Connor will choose six images to be published both in print and online, with both a winner and a runner-up selected. Our winner will also receive an amazing prize thanks to Think Tank.
You can find out all the details for entry and the themes for 2025 here.
Theme: Wildlife
Our winner: Hornbill pair by Karen Story
Editor’s comment
What’s that saying, good things come in twos? Karen Story says she photographed this striking pair of Yellow Billed Hornbills one afternoon in Kruger National Park, as they ‘minded their own business’ in a tree branch.
This is a great, classic portrait that’s been further enhanced by some tasteful editing – dropping distractions out of the background to enhance the subjects and emphasise the mirror-image like effect. A great moment.
Technical details
Technical details: Nikon D850, Sigma 150-600mm lens @ 400mm. 1/4000s @ f6, ISO 1600.
Highly commended
Peek-A-Boo by Gary Stephens
Editor’s comment
Staying in the small coastal village of Paraty, Brazil, Gary Stephens says there was a colony of marmoset monkeys living in the vines and surrounding trees of his hotel’s breakfast area.
“Each morning the adults would venture down and pick through the left-over fruits and scurry back up the vines to devour them or take them to their young,” he recalls. “This juvenile caught my attention as it peered through the foliage as the adults gathered food.”
One of the elements that can help elevate a wildlife photo is when you reveal something of your subject’s environment or behaviour. This doesn’t have to be a bold, flashy display either - even human-like traits such as what Gary’s shown here can work just as effectively to lift the image from being ‘just’ a portrait. Well done on spying this great perspective.
Technical details
Olympus E-M5 MK II, Olympus 75-300mm lens @ 300mm. 1/160s @ f6.7, ISO 1250.
Special mentions
How I did it
This encounter with a Green Jumping Spider (Mopsus mormon) was a nice surprise as it initially jumped on me to hitch a ride while walking around my garden. I placed it on one of our plants for a quick photoshoot.
Technical details
Olympus OMD EM1 Mark III, Olympus 60mm F2.8 Macro lens. 1/60s @ f11, ISO 200. Godox V350O Flash, Cygnustech Diffuser.
How I did it
This photo was shot using the iPhone 14 Pro Max portrait mode feature, on the setting ‘nature’. The ISO was set at 20, to allow for the lighting of the sunny day to solely light up the photo.
The aperture was at 2.8, to allow for a more natural light in the photo, and to also accommodate the portrait mode feature of having a blurry background/ a more shallow depth of field. VSCO was the only photo editing application I used, using the filter ‘DOG2’ on all 3 images on a lower setting, so as not to overwhelm the colour of the image.
Technical details
Apple iPhone 14 Pro. 1/160s @ f2.8, ISO 20.
How I did it
These sun birds built a nest in my backyard. I placed a tripod at a suitable distance and focused on the nest. When the female flew in to feed the chick I deployed a ‘spray and pray’ technique.
Technical details
Canon R6, Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 lens @ 300mm. 1/3200s @ f5, ISO 1600.
How I did it
I was at a local wetlands pond where there were about 20 Pink-Eared Ducks just quietly paddling around the pond as the do normally. In this large pond there were adult and juvenile ducks.
All of a sudden, an ongoing arial fight broke out as one of the adult ducks picked a fight with a juvenile and then chased it to the far end of the pond. This fighting went on for about two hours. It was quite a spectacle to see! According to a local bird expert, the adult duck was trying to get the juvenile to leave the pond permanently.
Technical details
Sony A1 II, Sony 400-800mm f/6.3-8 G OSS lens with Sony 1.4X TC @ 1120mm. 1/500s @ f/11, ISO 640.