The Oliver Rock Art Photography Award

Mark Oliver is a photographer living in Solvang, California. He worked with Bill Hyder and Georgia Lee to photograph rock art throughout southern California in the late 1970s and 1980s with an emphasis on the Chumash and Easter Island. Mark proposed and provided the initial funding for the Oliver Award after constructing a temporary studio and light setup inside Painted Cave powered by a portable generator. He reasoned that ARARA needed to encourage and reward photographers who made the extra effort to improve rock art photography.

In 2025, the Awards Committee was tasked with evaluating the current awards and proposing updates. Historically, this award has recognized excellence in the art and science of photography in the service of the study and appreciation of rock art. The award was conceived at a time before the advent of portable digital cameras and modern photographic methods. After consulting with Bill Hyder, who has studiously judged this award for decades, it seems the original intent of this award may have run its course due to drastically improved photographic capabilities. The ARARA Board sincerely congratulates all the previous Oliver Award winners for their skilled aptitude, artistry, effort, and innovation to pursue excellent rock art photography.

Starting with the 2026 award year, this award will continue the spirit of celebrating rock art photography, but it will instead act as a photo competition that follows an annual theme. We want to encourage widespread participation and make this a fun, engaging way to interact with ARARA membership.

The 2026 theme will be EFFORT. We want to see photos of the great lengths and effort that you and your colleagues put forth to photograph pictographs and petroglyphs in the name of digital preservation! Show us your best creativity and problem solving in photography!

HOW TO SUBMIT

Please submit your entry(s) by sending digital photographs to araraawards@gmail.com. Please include the name of the individual or organization submitting the photo, a name for the entry, and a few sentences explaining your submission.

We encourage widespread participation but please limit 2 submissions per person/organization.

The entries will be shared on the website, in an edition of La Pintura, and the winner will be announced at the award year’s conference.

The winner will be chosen by the ARARA Awards Committee.

All submissions will grant ARARA the right to exhibit the winning entry and to reproduce it in ARARA publications with appropriate credit to the photographer. All other rights to the use of the image(s) remain the property of the photographer or other legal owner of the original images.

Past recipients include (award not given in years not listed):

• 1996: Rick Bury  House of the Sun: The Seasons

• 1996: Honorable Mentions: Rick Pahuta, Leon Yost

• 1997: Clay Martin) Rock Paintings of Hueco Tanks

• 1998: Alain Briot Little Petroglyph Canyon

• 2000: William L. Johnson

• 2002: Robert Mark and Evelyn Billo Canyon de Chelly, A Painted Landscape and Digital Image Enhancement and Mosaic Techniques in Rock Art Recording

• 2004: Reinaldo Morales Jr.

• 2005: Anne Carter

• 2006: Diane Orr Utah's Vanishing Rock Art: 360-Degree Panoramas

• 2008: Craig Law The Harvest Scene in the Maze District

• 2010: John Wimberley Evidence of Magic (Great Basin rock art)

• 2010 Technical Achievement: Jon Harman DStretch

• 2011: Courtney Smith Caborca Rojos: Two Hills in Northern Sonora

• 2012: Dave Manley Upper Sand Island

• 2015: Francois Gohier

• 2016: Wayne Suggs

• 2017: Jeff LaFave Global Rock Art in its Landscape Context

• 2019: Ekkehart Malotki
• 2021: Mark Willis
• 2024: William Frej; Neffra Matthews and Tommy Noble (honorable mention for technical achievement)