Simon Devitt Prize for Photography
Winner 2016

Jodie Salmond is the winner of the 2016 Simon Devitt Prize for Photography.


The postgraduate student from Elam School of Fine Arts was awarded the 2016 Simon Devitt Prize for Photography, for her series of three images captured using an iPhone.

This year’s theme was ‘a chance encounter’ and Salmond, who is in her final-year of her Masters of Fine Arts (MFA), included two haiku poems as part of her tryptich entitled ‘When I’m night driving’.

Judge Simon Devitt, described Salmond’s work as ‘beguiling and arresting’. When presenting the prize to her he said “the winning work took risks, pairing a familiar night road trip scene with a close up study of an aggregate surface and road markings, which were unsettling in their shift of speed and scale.”


The Simon Devitt Prize for Photography is an annual award to celebrate the best student photograph at the University of Auckland, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries with this year’s theme entitled: A Chance Encounter.

A selection of twenty finalist from seventy entries have been chosen for this year’s exhibition to feature in the Auckland Festival of Photography Fringe Programme. The overall winner will receive the Simon Devitt Prize for Photography Trophy, NZ$1000 and a Canon Power Shot G7X camera.

Thank you to our valued sponsors and partners:
Simon Devitt, Auckland Festival of Photography, Canon and John Leech Framing Workshop

See the exhibition images here »