06 Jul 2026
Harpenden Photographic Society (HPS) has revealed the winners of its annual awards, including the overall Photographer of the Year for the 2025/2026 season.
The society, currently celebrating its 90th year, held five internal competitions throughout the season, where HPS members enter monochrome prints, colour prints, or digital projected images.
The top scoring images in each competition, as determined by an external judge, are awarded points, which cumulatively count towards a final score total for each participating member.
Individual category winners were as follows:
Monochrome Print – Steve Collins
Colour Print – Brian Cooke
Digital Projected Image – Ali Asplin
Based on accumulated points across all three categories in the five competitions, HPS announced the overall Photographer of the Year accoldade would go to Ali Asplin.
Ali said: “I was absolutely thrilled to win Photographer of the Year, and delighted that this marks the third time I’ve won this award. The standard of images entered by members this year was incredibly high, which makes the achievement even more meaningful.”
Further awards were presented for the following: Panel of Three (Jarvis Cup) – Mark Roberton; Audio Visual (AV) – Richard Greenaway; Best Newcomer – Nicky Broadhurst.
Awards were also presented to the winners of the most popular images at HPS’ annual exhibition, as voted by the more than 300 people who visited the event back in April, as well as the best panel, as voted by HPS members.
The prizes for Best Exhibition Print went to Julie Cawthorpe and Best Exhibition Panel to Judith Kelly.
The three most popular images at the exhibition were: Passion Turns to Aggression by Julie Cawthorpe, Forced or Fallen by Mark Roberton and Tiger in Early Morning Light in Julie Cawthorpe.
Mark’s image was from a panel of themed images helping to raise awareness and funds for St Albans-based homelessness Centre 33, with £186.50 raised in donations at the exhibition.
HPS chair Steve Collins said: “The awards night was a fantastic way to close another amazing season – one that saw us celebrate our 90th anniversary and welcome the largest number of new members to the society in our history.
“I am delighted that Ali has won the HPS overall Photographer of the Year title for the third time for her beautiful images. Our challenge to win this award is always heavily contested, and Ali scored consistently highly throughout the year. Huge congratulations to Ali, and to all of the category winners and runners-up, who entered such wonderful work into the competitions this season.”
