Northland Business Excellence Awards 2026: photographing the night

On Friday 2 October, I photographed the 2026 Northland Business Excellence Awards at McKay Stadium in Whangārei. It was a chance to document the people behind businesses across Te Tai Tokerau, and the celebrations as their work was recognised.

An awards evening has its own pace. On stage, there are presentations and speeches to follow. Around the room, there are reactions, conversations and the moments that happen while everyone’s attention is elsewhere. The photographs need to hold both sides of that story.

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Photographing the evening

For this event, the coverage brought together the atmosphere in the room, activity on stage and portraits of the winners with their category sponsors.

The formal photographs have an important job. They give the businesses and organisers a clear record of who was recognised. Alongside those, the wider photographs show what it felt like to be there: the lighting, the audience and the celebrations around the presentations.

I like an event gallery to give someone who wasn’t there a sense of the evening, while also giving the people who were there photographs they can use afterwards.

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A media selection ready overnight

The photography also had a deadline beyond the event itself. The organisers needed the winners’ photographs the following morning for their post-event media release.

By the early hours of Saturday, the winners and sponsor photographs were in the gallery, together with a selection from the night. I also prepared a register matching image filenames with names, so the photographs and captions could be checked together. The rest of the event gallery followed separately.

That is something worth discussing when planning corporate event photography. If you need images for a media release or an announcement straight after your event, agreeing on the priority selection beforehand helps make the photographs useful while the occasion is still fresh.

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Congratulations to everyone recognised at this year’s awards, and thank you to NorthChamber and The Event Collective for having me photograph the evening.

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Planning an event in Whangārei or Northland?

If you’re organising an awards evening or corporate event, see my corporate event photography. Tell me about the event and how you need to use the photographs, including any images you’ll need soon afterwards.

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