Last night, at an award ceremony in Huntington Beach, 21-year old Australian photographer, Duncan Macfarlane, won the Follow The Light Foundation grant. The grant is awarded by Surfing Magazine in memory of their long-serving photo editor, Larry 'Flame' Moore, to help promising photographers further their skills. In the surfing world it is the most prestiguous of its kind.

Duncan, who originally hails from Sawtell but now resides at Burleigh, was quietly excited when I contacted him about his win.

Swellnet: Congrats on the win, did you enter the competition yourself? Duncan Macfarlane: Yeah, I actually entered the comp two or three years back when I was kind of still learning. My portfolio was nowhere near strong enough back then and I knew it, but it's been on my mind ever since and I waited till I've felt confident with my photography. I think I still used some of my photos from the first submission as well but I just kept track of it and jumped on my chance when it came around this year.

Where you aware of who else had entered? I had no idea how many people entered or who entered or what work they'd submitted, so I had no way to gauge where I stood or what chances I had. I'd been working hard over the last two years building a portfolio from my travels so I just hoped that my work was up to standard.

What did you win? The grand prize is a $5000 grant put together by the sponsors of the event. That's rad, but just winning the grant is a massive boost to my name and exposure which you can't put a price tag on.

Any idea what it might mean for you career? Who knows? Everyone who's won before is a crazy good photographer who's work I've spent hours looking at on the 'net. I've got some big shoes to fill. I hope it provides me with some opportunities to go travel and create some unique work. But it's definitely a boost that will propel me into the paths of companies and magazines and open up avenues leading in all kinds of directions.

And what about right now? You're in the States, gonna stick around or come home? Now, well, I've just spent two months in Indonesia working and flew home for about 18 hours then flew straight here. So I'm going non stop. I hadn't seen my girlfriend in ages so she cancelled her surf trip to the Telos and came here with me.

So we're sticking around for a couple of weeks getting our head tourist on. We've already been to Seaworld and checking out the Grand Canyon and Vegas next week and probably going to cruise around Southern California after that taking in the whole vibe and catching up with a few friends. It's a rad place, California.

Past winners of the Follow the Light foundation are: 2006: Chris Burkard 2007: Mathew Clark 2008: Todd Glasser 2009: Ray Collins 2010: Morgan Maassen