Yesterday, I travelled down to London to attend the Awards Ceremony for the British Wildlife Photography Awards. Held in the Mall Galleries, it was a wonderful evening showcasing the inspiring images from this year’s competition. You can view all the winning images on the BWPA website by clicking on the image below:
On display at the gallery, were all the winning images as well as the Highly Commended images. It was fantastic to see these inspirational images that really showed off the wonderful diversity of British wildlife! It was also wonderful to meet so many keen photographers, all thrilled to have had their images chosen.
It was also special to have my Dad there too, as he achieved a Highly Commended for the 2nd year running with a superb shot of a 0.5mm springtail! Well done Dad!
My schools entry was mounted onto a board and looked great! Diane Compton, our Head teacher and Iain Green who had done the photography day with me were delighted to see the kids’ images in amongst these fantastic images from all over the British Isles!
Chris Packham hosted the evening, giving a fantastic talk and leading us all through the winning images, as well as awarding the prizes.
We were delighted to go up to collect our prize on behalf of all the Year 5 & 6 pupils at Michael Drayton and for me to surprise Chris, as my name had not appeared on his running order. Chris and I have met on numerous occasions, through Springwatch, Autumnwatch and at WildPhotos, but he was not expecting me to pop up at this event!
We have won a truly wonderful prize…. a Canon 1100 DSLR and lens kit and a Raspberry Pi kit for school. The IT team at school are excited for us to get this Pi kit and I can’t wait to get going on my new Photography Club at school with our new DSLR. A massive thanks to ‘Young Pioneers’ Charity for sponsoring this part of the competition and putting up these great prizes. Find out more about this charity by clicking the link below.
It was a pleasure to meet inspiration Luke Lancaster who set this charity up after suffering from severe bullying at school. It is well worth checking out the website and see what fantastic work they do with young people.
Another great bonus was our lovely images feature also in the coffee table book that is produced each year. Our shots looked lovely! Chris even signed the page for me :o)
The certificate will also be proudly displayed in school alongside the winning images that we are having printed up.
It was a wonderful evening… just not enough time to speak to all the people who I wanted to talk to.. it was just all over way too quickly! Thank to Maggie Gowan and her team for all her hard work in organising this wonderful competition and the evening. It was a wonderful experience and I feel privileged to have been part of it!
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