UKAHT’s Lesley Johnston wins photography award

31/07/2025

XR Producer Lesley Johnston wins second place at the ICOMOS-UK ‘Heritage at Risk' photography competition for her shot of the Detaille pup pen.

Heritage at risk is a universal problem, but we are witnessing a universal response: cooperation across borders, disciplines and generations. That spirit is the essence of the UK’s International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) – multinational, outward-looking, committed not only to bricks and stone, but to the intangible cultural heritage that binds communities to place.

Lesley – the Trust’s full-time XR producer – had three of her photographs shortlisted for the award, all from her time in the field during the 2023/24 season. Lesley spent nearly a month at Base W, Detaille Island, capturing almost 40,000 photographs of the buildings, which are in the process of being stitched together to produce a 3D model of the site, so eventually, anyone, anywhere in the world will be able to visit the site virtually.  

Judging the entries 

When the Development Committee conceived the competition, they had three aims:

1. To bear witness: to capture the fragile beauty of sites that stand on the brink, so their stories are not lost to silence.
2. To invite fresh eyes: to bring new, often younger, photographers into the heritage conversation and spark content that can travel on today’s social platforms.
3. To prove that distance is no barrier: their organising team and judges span half the globe, yet with shared digital tools, they built a truly international showcase.

In just a few months, ICOMOS-UK gathered over 100 entries from five continents. Each image was blind-scored against clear criteria, with every photograph that reached 90 points or more shortlisted. A final virtual round table – held across four time zones – produced the winners.

The prize-winners

First place 

Towers of Silence by Karolina Sinéad Johansson

South of Yazd, Iran, a wind-scoured ritual house rises from the desert. It was here that Zoroastrian mourners once gathered before the bodies of their loved ones were returned to the elements. The practice ended in the 1960s, yet Karolina’s lens captures a hush so powerful you can almost hear the desert breathe. 

Second place

Detaille Pup Pen by Lesley Johnston

On Detaille Island, Antarctica, hoar frost feathers a timber dog pen while icebergs drift like silent sentinels beyond. The image aches with cold, yet its warmth lies in the devotion of those who built and tended this outpost, now threatened by rising seas. 

Third place

View from Suakin Island by Kate Ashley

Across a glass-still bay in Sudan, the last echoes of Red Sea coral-rag architecture glow at sunset. Kate’s photograph is part postcard, part plea: save this place before the tide of neglect washes it away.

ICOMOS-UK would like to express their gratitude to the following people:

• Our volunteer working group, who stitched this project together from living rooms, cafés, and airport lounges, your generosity is the engine of ICOMOS-UK.
• Our international judging panel, which brought perspectives from five countries and judged with rigour, compassion, and open minds.
• And to every entrant: you have given us images that are art, record, evidence and – most of all – memory.