Wildlife photographers are invited to submit their best images to the British Wildlife Photography Awards (BWPA).
Now in its tenth year, BWPA celebrates the great wealth and diversity of British wildlife and showcases the talent of photographers.
Last year’s competition was won by Paul Colley, with ‘Contrails at Dawn’ (above), a black and white image revealing the flight paths of Daubenton’s bats in a country park in Swindon.
“Winning BWPA had an immediate and wide-ranging impact for my work with bats,” says Colley. “The BWPA publicity itself has been profoundly helpful because of its enormous reach, and allowed me to reach out with specific requests to work with bat experts.”
“The great news is that all the bat photography will now directly support bat conservation, so it’s a win-win situation,” he adds.
Colley will now be a judge for BWPA, and encourages photographers to submit their photos to the competition.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary, the coast and marine category has been enlarged to four separate categories: England, Northern Ireland and Coast of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
As the chairman of the British Society of Underwater Photographers, Colley is thrilled by this celebration of marine and coastal wildlife.
“The expanded coast and marine category provides a major opportunity for photographers to show, above and below water, the wonderful marine life and habitats that encircle our islands,” he explains.
The submissions to BWPA are judged by a variety of experts within conservation and photography, including BBC Wildlife Magazine’s editor, Sheena Harvey, who says: “Every year I am amazed at the quality of images submitted to the contest, from a huge range of photographers, amateur and professional. It’s a real pleasure to see how many people are interested in the UK’s wildlife and how they search out such interesting aspects of it to photograph, from the life that goes on in their own gardens to the heights of the Scottish hills and the depths of our rivers and oceans. This year’s emphasis on marine and coastal should bring some gems to the judging panel.”
BBC Wildlife Magazine sponsors the Animal Portraits category of the competition.
BWPA closes for entries on Saturday 6 April 2019.
