The Annual Photographic Competition is open to all members of The Wild Flower Society. See the 2024 Winning Entries here.
The Competitive Classes
- Habitat: A photograph of a plant or plant community within its environment or locality.
- Plant Portrait: A photograph of a plant that illustrates its uniqueness while at the same time revealing something of its ‘character’ – whatever that character might be.
- Close-up: A photograph that reveals in a more scientific way the uniqueness of a plant by a close-up photograph.
- Foreign Fields: A photograph of a plant or plant community that is clearly seen to be growing in a foreign country.
- Human Element: A photograph that concentrates on botanical personalities and/or their activities. Please ask any person involved for their permission, before submitting the picture.
General Information
Photographs are to be submitted electronically: Digital images must be submitted at full resolution. Each image must be titled and indication made as to which class it is to be entered. The image will not be eligible without this information. Alternatively, images can be submitted in full resolution by post on a SD card or USB stick to Ken Southall, Aspen Cottage, Nettlestead, Ipswich, IP8 4QT by the deadline, which will be published in the Spring magazine. The winning digital entries i.e. the first three places (if appropriate) and highly commended (H/C) in each class will be commercially printed on A4 size photographic paper and mounted so that they can be displayed at the AGM. Please ensure that your digital (jpeg) picture will fit in A4 size (portrait or landscape), which might necessitate some cropping accordingly by the entrant.
The photographs will be judged by persons other than the organiser, and the entrants’ names will not be revealed to the judges. The winning results will be published in the winter issue of the WFS magazine.
Each entrant can submit up to three photographs per class. Please do not submit exact or similar images across the classes. Photographs of vascular plants in their flowering, vegetative or fruiting stages are permitted along with
ferns, club-mosses, quillworts and horsetails. Photographs of fungi and bryophytes are excluded. In the Human Element class there are no restrictions of subject matter, the class being self-explanatory. Please ensure that any person(s) involved in the photograph gives their permission for it to be entered and displayed. In the Foreign Fields class, it is not enough just to photograph a foreign plant. The ‘foreignness’ of the plant in its habitat must be seen in the picture.
Whilst the photographer will retain the copyright of the photograph, the Wild Flower Society reserves the right to use the entries for publicity or to be printed in the WFS magazine or uploaded to the WFS website.
The Violet Schwerdt trophy will be awarded to the competition’s overall best entry and can be awarded for a maximum of three times to any one individual. The trophy will be retained for one year by the winner.
If you have any questions or queries, please email : ken.southall@btinternet.com or phone 07483 297078
