Native Photographer Rebecca Hall Wins Worldwide Photography Awards

WINNING SHOT {A photograph} of Tundra, up for adoption on the SPCA, took the bronze in a global photograph contest. Photo: Rebecca E. Hall

Santa Cruz nature photographer Rebecca E. Hall was shocked when she received a prestigious award in Paris for her work taking pictures an image of a canine. 

Her black-and-white photograph of Tundra, a pet up for adoption on the Santa Cruz SPCA, received within the prestigious 2025 Px3 Paris Photography Awards.

With only some years working the lens of her DSLR Pentax, Hall’s pictures has been gaining wall house and recognition nationally and internationally, with a number of of her photographs successful awards and honorable mentions in 2025.

“I practice every day, but I still wasn’t expecting to be placed in a big competition. This is the first time I’ve placed in something so big,” Hall says.

Winning Hall the Bronze award in Nature/Domestic Animals, “Tundra” was showcased with different winners of the 2025 Paris Photography contest, showing in an on-screen projection and presentation on the 24b Gallery in Paris earlier this fall.

Taken with a Pentax DSLR by means of the plexiglass of the SPCA kennel door, Hall’s image of Tundra attracts the viewer in.

 “She takes time, and that’s what you have to do with animals,” says Alison “Ali” Talley, govt director of the Santa Cruz SPCA shelter. “You can’t pressure them to smile. Hall has that knack for taking her time and making the dog comfortable.”

She volunteers each Monday on the SPCA to {photograph} the brand new arrivals up for adoption.

Picking up a digital camera in 2022 for the primary time was a game-changer for Hall, who has been dwelling with most cancers since she was 25. Connecting with nature and native wildlife has improved her emotional and psychological state.

 “Now I have something to focus on when I’m struggling. I can lose myself in beauty and life. It’s really powerful,” Hall says. 

Originally from simply exterior of London, Hall moved along with her household to the Bay Area when she was 5. After rising up within the Bay Area, she moved to the Aptos hills. Her environment carry her peace and inspiration as she continues to fight stage IV breast most cancers. Now at 40, she is holding regular and doing properly.

“Photography gave me something to believe in,” Hall says. “Something to enjoy learning and crafting.”  

Hall picked up pictures in the course of the pandemic, studying the fundamentals by watching how-to movies on YouTube, and studying articles on pictures methods.

She found that being in nature was therapeutic. She additionally discovered that she recuperated extra rapidly from her therapy classes when she was exterior and in nature.

 The wilderness of the Central Coast was her sanctuary, the digital camera her witness to its magnificence. Hall spent hours and weeks observing a household of California quails and got here to note the dad and mom would change off of their function of guardian.

 One day after a chemo infusion therapy, Hall was feeling fairly tough. She ventured into her household’s backyard and yard to a close-by meadow. and captured essentially the most wonderful photographs. A male quail, and father, is perched excessive up on a wild rosemary shrub, an oak moth hovering within the golden hue of the blurred background. This charming {photograph}, titled “Guardian Angel,” received Grand Prize Runner-Up within the National Wildlife Federation’s 2024 Garden for Wildlife Photo Contest.

And then the quail went worldwide, receiving honorable point out in Nature/Wildlife within the 2025 Prix de la Photographie, Paris (Paris Photography Awards).

“For so long my identity was all about being a cancer patient. I feel like the win is for me,” explains Hall, “having transitioned from a cancer patient who enjoys photography to a photographer who lives with cancer. It feels like I’m on the right path.”

Discover extra work by the artist at RebeccaHallPhoto.com or on Instagram: @RebeccaHallPhotography. To assist the native SPCA’s pet adoption program, go to spcasc.org.