The winner of this years Simon Devitt Prize for Photography competition is Alice O’Brien-Gortner.

The annual competition, now in it’s seventh year, was established at the Auckland School of Architecture and Planning.

O’Brien-Gortner, a third-year Bachelor of Architectural Studies student, receives a trophy and $1000 prize money after her image was chosen from a field of twenty finalists.

This year’s theme was The In-Between and I selected Extinguished as the winning entry because this is where the image seems to live.

There is a highly evocative sense of ‘another’ place we get when we experience this photograph.

O’Brien-Gortner has created an imagined world that perhaps raisers more questions than it answers for the viewer.

Her photograph leaves us in a challenging and uneasy place, wondering how we arrived.

A selection this years best entries are on show until 7 June as part of the Auckland festival of Photography.

The 2014 Simon Devitt Prize for Photography Exhibition
28 May-7 June
Foyer, Conference Centre
The University of Auckland
22 Symonds Street