AOP Student Awards - WINNERS

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AOP Student Awards

We are back after the summer break with excellent news from the Association of Photographers ‘Student Awards’.

Edinburgh College Photography BA (Hons) Professional Photography Graduates; Gemma McNaughton and Anthony Porter have been awarded Silver in the AOP Student Awards. Justyna Cebula was placed in the Finalists.

A fantastic achievement as these annual awards present an array of diverse and vibrant talent from students across the UK, representing 21 different UK photography courses from HND to MA level. This year, its 41st, sees 50 entries from 48 individuals divided across three categories – People, Places, Things – of which there are gold and silver recipients.

The judges for the AOP 2026 Student Awards are People – Aneesa Dawoojee, award winning AOP accredited portrait and social documentary photographer and photographic educator; Places – Greg Funnell, AOP accredited photographer who has spent the last two decades working across over 70 countries; and Things – Eleanor Harrison, founder/director at photography agency Pearson Lyle Management Ltd.

You can view the AOP Student Awards - Here

Gemma McNaughton – Silver – Places category

‘Against the Grain’

My practice is a phenomenological investigation into the body’s relationship with the built environment, specifically Scotland’s urban landscapes. Drawing on Juhani Pallasmaa’s critique of ocular-centrism, I restore a haptic depth to the image through staged choreography. By placing models in sculptural poses that disrupt functional perceptions of space, I explore the human form as it inhabits my own everyday environment in Leith. This practice functions as a resistance against the disciplinary structures that dictate how we move and exist in space. By prioritising a haptic, physical dialogue with architecture, I reconnect the viewer to the sensory necessity of physical agency. The result is a reclamation of the city, turning the familiar into a site of embodied experience.

AOP Judge Gregg Funnell described his choice of Silver winner as;

“My Silver winner was more conceptual in its approach, but I liked the feeling it created of detachment and human anxiety that can exist in a place. I think it tapped into universal feelings that we come to feel towards places, especially in our adolescence”.

Anthony Porter – Silver – People Category

‘Seeing the Unseen’

In 2021, I was paralysed by Guillain-Barré Syndrome. I spent months unable to move, dependent on machines and other people for everything. I recovered — enough to walk, enough to function, enough that strangers see nothing wrong when they look at me. That invisibility is the subject of this work.An estimated 80% of disabilities in the UK are hidden. The wheelchair — the image the world reaches for when it thinks about disability — represents only a fraction of the reality. From personal experience as a disabled photographer, Seeing the Unseen explores the tension between visibility and assumption, and the social pressures faced by people whose conditions leave no obvious physical trace.The project is a constructed documentary series made in collaboration with people living with hidden conditions — chronic illness, neurological damage, mental illness, and pain that leaves no visible mark. Using portraiture, metaphor, and visual construction, the work makes tangible what daily life conceals, translating internal experience into visual form.It does not ask for sympathy. It asks for attention.

AOP Judge Aneesa Dawoojee commented:

“…my chosen winners stood out for the clarity and power of their storytelling. The hidden disability entry was striking; the images conveyed their message without relying on words, and the visual thinking behind them was confident and considered”.

Justyna Cebula - AOP - Finalist

Justyna's image entitled 'Gaming Disorder' was awarded Finalist amongst the selection to be included in the exhibition. The work was made in response to a concern over gaming disorder, a behavioural addiction defined by the World Health Organization as a pattern of impaired control over video games, giving increasing priority to gaming over other life interests and daily activities, and continuing the behaviour despite negative consequences.