Landscape Awards 2025: the story behind Ryan Tutor’s winning image

Landscape photography isn’t all about sunlit vistas of the natural world. This brilliantly moody shot from The Landscape Awards 2025 shows the power of main street gloom.

Moody ambience: “Going in Circles“. Picture: Ryan Tutor

Landscape photography, as a genre, is something that we normally associate with stunning vistas of the natural world; we think of mountains and deserts and ­forests and coastlines, bathed in golden sunlight. This image, winner of the Urban category in The Landscape Awards 2025 run by Australian ­Photography magazine, isn’t like that at all. But doesn’t it brilliantly capture a sense of place, and of moody drama?

It’s a rare thing for Hervey Bay in Queensland to be shrouded in fog, says photographer Ryan Tutor, who’s lived there for six years. On this evening last winter, the novelty of it saw him and his partner ­Rebecca down at the jetty at 9pm, shooting selfies and ghostly nightscapes. And driving through town on the way home, they passed this roundabout that looked like a noir film set. Tutor pulled over and set up his camera on a tripod to take a 20-second exposure. One car went past during that time, and Rebecca circled the roundabout in their Corolla for good measure, the cars’ lights adding the swirling trails in this shot.

Tutor, 42, is originally from Colorado in the US but came over here 13 years ago on a working holiday that has never quite ended. He has ­laboured in vineyards and restaurants, and as a landscaper; for the past few years he’s been a ­disability support worker, helping autistic, non-verbal clients to navigate the world. It’s “challenging but very rewarding”, he says. And as a counterpoint to that work, he exercises his creative brain as a fine art photographer, shooting landscapes and nature. This shot, titled Going in Circles, is one of his favourites. “I just love the moody ambience of it,” he says.