Douglas Thorne beat more than 2200 entries to win the animal category for people aged 15 and older and the overall winner at the 2017 Otago Wildlife Photography Competition at Otago Museum on Saturday.
His winning photo Rifleman perched was the first image he had entered in the competition.
The Dunedin-based and Te Anau-raised photographer snapped the small endemic bird when he was working as a guide on Milford Track in February last year.
''I love taking bird photos.''
The 24-year-old said the pleasure of photographing birds was capturing their beauty.
''In real life, they are so fast, you don't get to see them for long - but when you snap it and look back, you go 'Wow, they are beautiful' - you can really appreciate them.''
The photo was taken about 11am and captured the ''morning light coming through the trees'' which ''highlighted the background greens''.
The plain background of a ''clear, blurred-out forest'' worked perfectly, he said.
A rifleman was a tricky subject as a photographer needed to be quick to catch it ''darting in and out'' of the shot.
Luckily, the rifleman in his photo stopped momentarily to look for insects to eat.
He was about 15m away from the bird and used the 100-400mm zooms lens on his Canon 5D Mark II to zoom in on the subject.
For winning the prize, the Dunedin Hospital security officer took home a Canon 750D.
About 250 people attended the prizegiving at the museum on Saturday and Mr Thorne cut the ribbon to open the exhibition of the best competition photos and videos of plants, animals, pets, night skies and human impact on the environment.
