Mission:

An exhibition of photography to highlight the wonderful nature and wild spaces on our doorstep, celebrating the important relationships between people and local wildlife in Ealing.

Judging criteria:

We want to explore what nature and wildlife means to you. Everyone sees their surroundings through a different lens, so we want to celebrate diverse personal journeys and individual relationships with nature.

This is not purely a technical photography exhibition; equally if not more important is the portrayal of images that will engage the public with the natural world at a local level in Ealing.

We will judge each photograph impartially, without bias and keeping the mission of the exhibition in mind.

The judging panel consists of a panel of wildlife and/or photography enthusiasts, including members of Ealing Wildlife Group, Ealing Council Park Rangers as well as amateur and professional photographers.

Categories:

1. Community Conservation: Showcase people, projects or places coming together to care for, protect, enhance and conserve Ealing’s natural spaces. Or tell a story through an image that captures what community conservation means to you.  
2. Abstract Nature: Capture the artistry and magic of nature, which could be the play of light and shadows creating fascinating patterns and shapes, or an abstract image exploring an object’s natural shape and form. This category is wide open so let your creativity go wild!
3. Urban Nature: It’s incredible what creatures and life shows up in urban environment, so show us where the man-made environment meets the wild.
4. Relationships with Nature: Capture the meaning of nature and wildlife to you and tell us why it makes your heart sing.
5. Up Close and Personal: This can be taken literally if you’ve captured incredible detail, it can cover macro photography or you can interpret it as imaginatively as you wish.
6. Young Wildlife Explorers: This is the under 16s category and seeks to celebrate our young wildlife enthusiasts and engage other young people with nature.

Submission guidelines:

1. All submissions must be your own work and by entering you declare you have the legal rights to that image.
2. Each entrant can submit up to three photographic images to be judged for competition
3. Submission of entries does not guarantee inclusion in the exhibition.
4. Entries will be eligible for a first, second and third award in 6 categories as well as placing in the overall winner category.
5. You should specify which category you are entering; judges will appraise each entry using the categories as judging criteria but may award your photo in another category if deemed fit.
6. High res original jpeg files to be submitted online at https://ealingwildlifegroup.com/2021-photo-competition/  by midnight on Wednesday 13th October 2021.  Maximum size of images is 15MB.
7. Entries submitted after the deadline will not be eligible. Late entries cause extra admin and will NOT be accepted.
8. Excessive manipulation of images is not allowed and will be grounds for disqualifying a photograph. 
   • Types of editing that are not allowed:
     • Excessive vignettes.
     • Artificial borders. 
     • Extreme changes to colour, saturation, light, or contrast.
     • Adding, moving or removing objects, animals or parts of animals, plants, people etc. 
     • The removal of dirt, highlights, backscatter, bubbles, debris and similar.
     • Composites.
     • Painting the foreground/painting out the background 
     • Anything that could be viewed as rendering the image a dishonest representation will be disqualified.  
   • Types of editing that are allowed:
     • Digital adjustments including tone and contrast, burning, dodging, cropping, sharpening, noise reduction, minor cleaning work (e.g. removal of sensor dust or scratches on transparencies/scans, removal of chromatic aberration),
     •  HDR, stitched panoramas, focus stacking are permitted providing that they do not deceive the viewer or misrepresent the reality of nature, or what was originally captured by the camera.
9. No photos of staged wildlife shots, no captive animals, no dead creatures posed as if alive are allowed.
10. Photographs must have been taken within the Borough of Ealing within the last 5 years; the exact location is to be included in the submission details.
11. Please include your camera or phone details (e.g. ‘iPhone 10’ is fine, we have winners every year using phone cameras). List the settings if you wish so others who are interested in technical details can learn.
12. Your description of the photo is just as important as the photo itself and is part of the judging criteria so please fill it in with more than just a name of species or subject and location. We want to hear the story of the photo and perhaps what it means to you. Failure to provide a good description that will be displayed with your entry may lose you significant points in judging.
13. By submitting your photo to the competition you agree for EWG to share the image in promotional materials in future, with credit to you, the photographer.
14. Winners will be announced at the opening of the exhibition in Walpole Park this Autumn and a list of winners will be posted online afterwards on Facebook and our website. We cannot guarantee all winners will be informed individually afterwards, and certainly not before the opening of the exhibition. 
15. Political agendas are not factored into any part of the judging criteria. Photos win on their own merits.

Good Luck everyone! 🍀😊