It was the encouragement of her grandmother that prompted Heather Feary to enter a major national photographic competition - and she walked away with one of the major trophies.
The Rotorua photographer won the Ronald D Woolf Youth Award for the Best Print by an under-25-year-old in the 2014 Photographic Society of New Zealand's annual Canon National Exhibition competition.
Miss Feary only has a few years of experience under her belt since graduating with a degree in Applied Visual Imaging majoring in photography from Palmerston North's UCOL, but has her future direction clearly mapped out.
She entered the competition at the encouragement of her photographer grandmother, Alison Viskovic, and she's glad she did.
Her image, Hand Lady of the Forest, wowed the judges.