To submit entries to the competition, you must first register an account here. From the competition dashboard, you can purchase entry credits for your submissions (in the adult contest).

Once your images are showing in the “Manage Entries” section of your dashboard, then they are safely submitted to the competition. You can delete and edit your entries up until the closing date, at which point the submissions will be locked and judging will begin.

For entries that reach the final round, we will email you and request high resolution files to be submitted.

For each cycle of the competition, we will release competition updates and dates for when you can expect to hear more. Please ensure you are receiving our newsletter, which you can sign up to on our homepage.

The judging process does take a long time due to the volume of submissions, preparation of the book, and printing of the exhibition. We appreciate your patience!

Winners will be officially announced in March at an awards ceremony in the UK.

The competition is open to anyone except those directly involved in the organisation and judging of the competition.

Amateur and professional photographers of any nationality are eligible.

Photographers from any country are welcome to enter but photographs must have been taken in the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.

Please submit images to the competition that are:

JPEG format; no greater than 2 megabytes in size; 2000px maximum longest side.

We have no colour space requirements, but sRGB is a good choice. The DPI of the file does not matter at this stage.

You can compress your files to these requirements using Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, or other editing softwares.

The competition opens on the 14th March 2023, and will close on 4th June 2023.

The winners will be announced in March 2024 at our awards ceremony.

We do not have specific dates as to when successful entrants will be contacted prior to this official announcement. Thanks for your patience!

Entries must have been taken in the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.

Images from British Overseas Territories are not eligible.

Images can be of native or migrant wild species, or non-indigenous species that reside permanently in the UK.

Images of captive animals, unless taken for a conservation or journalism award, are not eligible. For example, pets and farm animals are not permitted in the competition.

Please read the full competition rules on the website.

Normal edits to your photos (such as dodging, burning, exposure changes, sharpening, de-noising etc.) are accepted.

Our policy on removing things from images is “nothing beyond the lens”. This means you can remove sensor spots or dust on the lens, but you can’t remove a misplaced tree branch in the photo.

Composites are also not permitted, with the exception of panoramic stitches, focus-stacking, HDR, and in-camera multiple exposures.

You can read the full rules here.

Yes, you can enter images that are submitted into other competitions. You can also submit images that have already won an award in another competition (but not in BWPA).

You must be 17 years old or younger at the time of the competition closing to be eligible for the youth competition.

No. If you're eligible for the youth award, you are not eligible for the adult categories.

There is no limit on the number of images you can enter into the adult competition, provided you have sufficient entry credits to submit.

For the young competition, you can submit up to 10 photos for free. It is not possible to enter more than 10 images for the youth award.

Yes, but it is not necessarily recommended.

The judges will sometimes move images between categories if they think they fit better elsewhere.

We cannot advise you on which category you should submit, and we recognise that sometimes an image could fit into multiple categories. You can read the category descriptions on the website to determine the best fit for your submission.

If you do choose to submit the same photo in multiple categories and should be successful, please note that the same image cannot be awarded in multiple categories.

The cost of running a major national photography competition is surprisingly high. The prizes, award ceremony, and the cost of securing a nationwide exhibition all come at a price for BWPA.

The entry fees help us to achieve this, and put on a fantastic celebration of UK wildlife each year.

Yes. However, it’s always a good idea to enter something fresh which the judges have not seen before.