09/09/2026
📸🌼 THAT’S A WRAP! THE GOLDEN LENS 2026 HAS BEEN RUN & WON! 🙌🏆 After four weeks, 170+ incredible entries and more than 1,000 votes, our inaugural Golden Lens Riverina Canola Photography Competition has officially come to an end!
At just 14 years old, student Tahlia Lowe has taken out the $100 People’s Choice prize with this stunning shot, collecting almost 400 votes during our 24-hour public poll! 🤩
We suspect there may have been a pretty determined team of family & friends helping get those votes over the line! 😂 But that’s what the People’s Choice is all about. What an incredible result for one of the youngest photographers in our competition!
Congratulations, Tahlia! 👏 We’ll be in touch later this morning to arrange your $100 prize!
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💰 $50 VOTERS’ DRAW
We’ve also drawn our $50 cash prize from everyone who cast a valid vote & Junee’s own Glenda Clemson is our lucky winner! 🙌🥳
We couldn’t think of a more deserving local to have her name come out of the draw. A well-known & highly respected member of the Junee community! 💛
Glenda, if you see this, please send us a message so we can arrange your prize! 😊
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And with that, The Golden Lens 2026 is officially done and dusted! 🌼
What started as a simple idea to celebrate the Riverina’s spectacular canola season became something much bigger than we anticipated.
More than 170 photographs were submitted from across the region. Our final five attracted more than 1,000 votes in just 24 hours. We had seasoned photographers, complete beginners, families and, something we particularly loved, a number of talented young photographers getting involved!
But ultimately, this competition was about more than finding the “best” photograph! It was about encouraging people to get out, explore the Riverina and experience the canola season for themselves.
We heard from families who made a day of it, kids who went exploring with their parents and people who discovered parts of our region they might otherwise have driven straight past.
That, for us, made the whole thing worthwhile! ☺️💛
A massive thank you to every single person who entered. Narrowing more than 170 submissions to 12 finalists was extraordinarily difficult. There were so many photographs deserving of recognition that, if we could have handed out prizes to everyone, we probably would have! 😅
And we’re not quite finished showcasing them yet!
Over the coming days and weeks, we’ll be sharing some of the standout and highly commended entries that didn’t quite make the final cut, because there are far too many brilliant photographs sitting in our collection not to share them!
We’ve also had a few late entries that we cannot ignore!
Thank you also to our four independent judges for giving up their time and taking on the unenviable task of ranking our finalists.
And finally, thank YOU, our readers and followers! ❤️
The Junee Bulletin simply wouldn’t exist without the community that reads, follows, shares and supports what we do. Your support allows us to keep trying new things like this and, importantly, give something back to the communities we cover!
170+ entries. More than 1,000 votes. Three cash prizes. One spectacular Riverina canola season.
Not bad for our first Golden Lens! 😉🌼📸
Thank you, Riverina! 💛
The Junee Bulletin |
