The competition is open to both amateur and professional photographers from any country in the world. Entry is permitted by anyone 18 years of age or older, with the exception of employees of the World Nature Photography Awards (WNPA) and their organisers. Entries are permitted into the following categories:
Animals in their habitat
Animal portraits
Behaviour - Amphibians and reptiles
Behaviour - Birds
Behaviour - Invertebrates
Behaviour - Mammals
Plants and fungi
Urban wildlife
Planet Earth's landscapes and environments
Underwater
Black and white
Nature art
Nature photojournalism
People and nature
All entries must be submitted online only through the WNPA website. Entries are only accepted with a completed online form and processed payment. Entry fees are payable in UK Sterling and are not refundable in any circumstances. Entries must be received by the closing date of midnight GMT on 30th June 2024.
In entering the competition, you acknowledge that you have read and are agreeing to the rules of the competition. You agree that you will be liable to the competition organisers, Alternative Future Ltd, in respect of any damages or losses incurred as a breach of the rules on your part as entrant.
By entering the competition, you agree that WNPA may publish at their sole discretion any material you supply to their website or by any other means, and they shall be entitled to make additions or deletions to any such material prior to publication.
Any image submitted to the competition may be used by the WNPA, the competition organisers, and their media partners, for marketing and promotional purposes of the competition only. By entering the competition, entrants grant the WNPA and their organisers a non-exclusive, irrevocable licence to reproduce, publish, exhibit and communicate to the public any image, by any means and in all media throughout the world.
SUBMISSIONS
There is no limit to the number of individual images each artist may submit. There is no time or date restriction on when the image was taken. In entering the WNPA, entrants agree that their images do not feature captive or restrained animals.
Submissions are accepted in digital format only. High quality scans of negatives or transparencies are also accepted. Please include with your submission the story behind your image and the exact location where it was taken. Files must be submitted as JPEGs, saved at a high-quality setting of at least 8 in Photoshop and at least 1000 pixels along the longest dimension (72dpi). Images should not contain watermarks, signatures or copyright symbols and should not have borders. Please do not include a name in metadata, caption or the image itself. EXIF details should be kept intact. Finalists will be required to supply RAW files for verification purposes.
The entrant must be the sole copyright owner of all images entered. Any persons featured in the entries must have given prior permission for their likeness to be used. Entrants must not have acted in any way unlawfully in obtaining the image.
Images submitted into the WNPA must be original works of the photographer and not created by AI (Artificial intelligence). Limited digital manipulations and focus stacking are permitted, providing they do not compromise the authenticity of the image. However, composites and the addition or removal of objects, people, animals or parts of animals is strictly forbidden.
In submitting their images, entrants declare that no animals were harmed during the photography process and no unethical practices were used. Similarly, entrants declare that no live bait was used.
Entries found to be in conflict with the rules will be disqualified and no correspondence will be entered into. Any prize(s) will be also be forfeited.
Digital entries submitted into the competition will not be returned by the WNPA to entrants. The WNPA cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage suffered by any entrant in relation to the competition or the use of any prize.
COPYRIGHTS
Copyright of images remains with the photographer.
For winning images, copyright holders grant WNPA unlimited non-exclusive use of high-resolution images for activities in all media, including social media, online and print, in relation to the contest and all promotional activities, including those of any official WNPA sponsors, without any remuneration.
Copyright holders of all awarded images grant the WNPA and their sponsors non-exclusive use of low-resolution pictures on their websites and social media, without any remuneration. Images will be used strictly in reference to the competition.
You agree to participate in related publicity and to the use of your name and images for the purposes of advertising, promotion and publicity in connection with the competition without additional compensation. WNPA and its media partners assume no responsibility and are not liable for any image misuse by external third parties.
All images used by WNPA will always carry a photographer credit. The photographer agrees that the organisers will not be liable to the photographer in the event of any inadvertent omission of a photographer credit.
JUDGING
Entries will be judged by a judging panel on their artistic merit, originality, subject and style. The decision of the judges is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
A gold, silver and bronze winner will be awarded in each category. The highest scoring gold photographer across all categories is awarded the title of World Nature Photographer of the Year and $1000 prize money. No alternative prize is available. WNPA does not hold itself responsible for any bank charges incurred by the prize recipient during the transfer of prize money.