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Photography Competition 2004 - Results

The West Midlands Wildlife Photography Competition 2004 has recently been judged by award-winning photographer Nick Garbutt, and the winners were announced by Nick at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on Thursday 6th January at a special prize-giving evening hosted by the West Midlands Biodiversity Partnership.

The West Midlands Biodiversity Partnership’s photographic competition ran over the summer and closed in the autumn after an excellent response. It has helped to raise the profile of the Region’s amazing wildlife and will hopefully continue to encourage interest in our landscapes and animals, as the exhibition of the winning images moves around the Region during 2005.

Steve Holliday, Chair of the West Midlands Biodiversity Partnership says, “We are delighted with the widespread response to the photographic competition and with the standard of images entered. It is wonderful to see how people view the habitats and wildlife of the West Midlands, and the winning entries will hopefully encourage more people to get out and about enjoying the wildlife around them.”

The overall West Midlands Wildlife Photographer 2004 is Shirley Hancox of Brownhills in the West Midlands which was announced on the night of the prize-giving. Her photo of a burnet moth at rest (shown above) particularly caught the judges’ attention due to its striking colours and the almost tropical look of a common insect found a region often associated with industry rather than interesting wildlife. Shirley won the star prize of a Sigma 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens and close up lens.

All the winners of the competition show the public’s view of the wildlife and habitats of the West Midlands Region. The winner of the landscape category, ‘Broadening our Horizons’, was David Wain of Tamworth in Staffordshire with his picture of Hen Cloud on the edge of the Peak District. The runner up was Jonathan Stokes of Wolverhampton with his striking black and white image of farmland in Staffordshire.

The winner of the species category, ‘Up Close and Personal’, was Shirley Hancox with her photo of a burnet moth, and the runner-up was Graham Burns from Newport in Shropshire with a beautiful image of fungi that has a dreamy quality to it.

The category ‘Our Connection with Nature’ was open to interpretation by entrants but the judges were looking for a strong image that showed the powerful relationship between man and his environment, whether good or bad. John Gallen’s image of flowers blooming amongst the rubble of an industrial site in Coventry where he lives caught the attention of the judges and won the category. Mark Eccleston of Telford, Shropshire is the runner-up with his photo of flowers by the railway.

Finally, the entries for the Junior Wildlife Photography Award were so good that it was too close to call and the judges awarded two winning prizes. One was to Camilla James from Stone in Staffordshire for her photo of farmland by the River Trent, and the other was to Simon Williams from Norton Canon in Herefordshire for his engaging picture of a toad.

Prizes for the winners include a family day out with the National Trust, a signed book from top wildlife photographer Heather Angel, a field guide from the RSPB, a beanbag from Wildlife Watching Supplies, and membership of Butterfly Conservation.

The competition is forming part of the WMBP’s project, Rebuilding Regional Biodiversity, which aims to look after wildlife in the Region by promoting its needs and the issues surrounding it and ensuring it is included in regional polices and plans. The project is funded by Defra’s Environmental Action Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

For more information about where the winning images will be displayed please visit www.wmbp.org or contact Helen Taylor on 0121 454 8018.