Stunning ‘behind the scenes’ lighting shot wins Event Photography Awards

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The eleventh annual Event Photography Awards 2025 took place last week at 66 Portland Place, the home of RIBA, just a few days before the venue closes for a multi-million-pound renovation.

250 guests enjoyed catering by Blue Strawberry while perusing an extensive gallery of over 130 short-listed shots printed by Visions Group, who also oversaw event production.

The competition was founded to highlight the importance of great photography to the sustenance of the events industry by Philip Atkins, CEO of staffing agency Off To Work. It attracted over 2,300 images of events held all around the world from photographers in over 30 countries.

Atkins, said: “Photography does so much to amplify, justify and sustain the events industry, which itself is an increasingly important element in marketing budget, let alone economies and society as a whole. It was generally agreed amongst the judges that the competition was the toughest yet to adjudicate, as a plethora of inspiring, amusing and moving images encapsulated the importance and impact events.”

The overall winner trophy and a cheque for £1,000 was won by Luke Dyson, who is the first person to win the award twice (see main article image).

His stylish ‘behind the scenes’ category winner proved popular with both the many industry leading judges on the panel, as well as trade and photography magazine editors.

Entitled ‘Singularity’, the image shows a lighting engineer for Barcelona-based event managers, Vision Factory, testing the visual displays for the MDLBEAST Soundstorm festival in Riyadh late into the night before the opening day, thereby highlighting the commitment, attention to detail and technological investment required to successfully produce impactful events.

The emotionally provocative overall runner-up shot came from the increasingly important Brand Activation & Experiential Events category.


Photo credit: David Parry/PA Media Assignments

Captured at Westfield White City London by David Parry for the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), where the suicide prevention charity unveiled their Missed Birthdays installation made up of 6,929 ‘balloons of hope’, representing a real young life lost to suicide in the past decade. The photograph also won the Peoples’ Choice Award which is voted for by guests attending the awards event.

The two Overall Highly Commended images showed great moments at contrasting music events.

Victor Frankowski’s image has an exuberant Fatboy Slim leading the dancing at his annual pool party during the All Back to Minehead Festival; while Dutch photographer, Martin Hols, captured huge flames erupting from towering structures at the Defqon.1 Festival in The  Netherlands, casting a deep orange glow over the massive crowd.

The Best Portfolio award was won by Andrew Billington, who was recognised after being runner-up in three of the eighteen core categories, as well as winning the Christmas Parties & Seasonal Events class with a fun shot of a camel.

Bethlehem Bypass – After getting stuck on the motorway the camel finally arrives at the Winterfest led by a Wise Man only to encounter local road works. Photo credit: Andrew Billington

For the second year running, Andrew Pountney, picked up the Best Amateur trophy, but this year he shared the accolade will an Anthony Black.

In The Moment – A Metallica show is an unforgettable experience and this monochrome image captures the intensity of their concerts through the facial expression of frontman James Hatfield – Photo Credit: Andrew Pountney.

Jack Boskett won the Royal Occasions category for the third year in a row.

Princess Catherine’s Carriage – Photo Credit: Jack Boskett

Competition and event director, Graham Hill, said: “We owe huge debts of gratitude to our sponsors and event partners for making the competition possible and awards event enormously enjoyable. Also, to our array of judges, who had well over 500 photos to review across the eighteen core categories. The competition continues to go from strength to strength and is becoming increasingly international, so with both quality and quantity in mind, we look forward to EPA 2026 with great anticipation.”

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