From the Galapagos Conservation Trust website (the UK non-profit supporting Galapagos conservation):

 

Welcome to the Galapagos Conservation Trust’s 2018 Galapagos Photography Competition. 

If you have been lucky enough to visit the Enchanted Isles and have managed to capture some of the Archipelago’s stunning natural beauty through the lens, why not enter our competition and see what the judges say! If you’re looking for inspiration, check out 2017’s winners here. 

Competition Categories

As always, this year’s competition aims to celebrate the art of photography, whilst showcasing the extraordinary natural history of Galapagos. Images should be unique, interesting, engaging and well-composed, and should be entered under one of the following competition categories:

• Animal Portrait: illustrate the natural essence, character, and personality of an animal in its Galapagos habitat. 
• Animal Behaviour: demonstrate a particular aspect of an animal’s natural behaviour. This could be an unusual behaviour rarely seen or a common behaviour depicted in an interesting and inspired way.
• Landscape: highlight the natural beauty of the Galapagos landscape. With its volcanic highlands, sloping forests, rocky shores, cliffs, beaches, lagoons and lava flows, there are ample opportunities.
• Botanical: capture the beauty and unique characteristics of botanical subjects in Galapagos. From cacti and mangrove trees to algae and lichen, judges will look for careful composition and pin-sharp focus.
• Man in the Archipelago: showcase an aspect of human presence, influence, or activity in Galapagos. This could include scientists conducting cutting-edge research in the field, locals going about their everyday life, tourists enjoying themselves, or a depiction of one of man’s more sinister impacts in the Archipelago.  

View last year’s other winning images

Entry Details and Rules

All entries into the 2018 Galapagos Photography Competition must be received by midnight on Friday 8 June 2018.

Whilst entry into this photography competition is free, we encourage entrants to make a donation to the Galapagos Conservation Trust (£5 per entry is recommended). Your donations will support one of our many projects in the Galapagos Islands.

To enter the competition:

• Read, accept, and comply with the Terms and Conditions of Entry.
• Complete the online entry form and upload your images.
• If you would like to make a donation to support the work of GCT, visit the donate page.

Entrants may submit a maximum of five images. Each image must only be submitted into a single category. Entrants may enter all five images into a single category, or select different categories for different images, but the total number of images submitted must not exceed five. We would encourage entrants to submit images covering a range of subjects, rather than five images of a single species. Images submitted in previous years will be disqualified.

Only digital images greater than 2MB and 1600 pixels on the shortest edge will be accepted. We do not accept printed photographs, slides, or CDs submitted.

PLEASE NOTE: For the chance to be included in the GCT Calendar, images must have a landscape orientation. Portrait-orientated images will still be accepted for the competition but cannot be included in the calendar.

Judging Process and Prizes

A selection of the best images will be short-listed by GCT staff and passed onto a panel of experts for further judging. Our judges will consider the originality, composition, clarity, technical excellence, overall impact, and artistic merit of each of the short-listed images. They will subsequently select an overall winning and runner-up image, as well as a winner and a runner-up for each of the five categories.

The overall winner of the competition will receive: two tickets to 2018’s Galapagos Day, a year’s free membership to GCT, a signed copy of Henry Nicholls’ book The Galapagos: A Natural History, and the winning image will appear in the 2019 GCT calendar. The winner of each category in the competition will receive a copy of GCT’s 2019 calendar and the winning images, as well as the runner-up images for each category, will appear on GCT’s website.

Winners will be announced at the earliest date possible after the competition close date. Please bear in mind that our judges are active professional photographers and may be in the field and thus incommunicado for extended periods of time. We therefore ask for your patience on this announcement. The winning and runner-up images for each category will appear on the website, and the photographers notified by email.

Previous Competitions

To view images from previous photography competitions, please visit the Competition Galleries page.