Regional Judges
WWT Arundel
Tony Wainwright
Tony Wainwright was born in the West Midlands and subsequently moved to London, where his passion for photography began. Once established in London he started to assist other photographers using a variety of styles, both on location and in the studio. At the same time he enrolled on a two year photographic course at the City & Islington College in Holloway, London. After completing his course Tony progressed his career and furthered his technical knowledge while working for the three major photography labs in London, namely Sky Photographic, Joe’s Basement and Metro Imaging Ltd.
Over the years, his prints have been sold to the retail market, private collectors and through stock libraries. Tony has also gained recognition by winning photographic competitions, including the BBC Wildlife Magazine contest.
Until recently Tony was the Photography Editor for the Brighton Arugus newspaper. Tony is now based from his studio in Sussex. His work currently embodies panoramic, landscape and travel photography from around the world. Tony offers a bespoke service to provide his panoramic prints to those seeking a distinctive contemporary look for their home or office.
Visit Tony's website
Robert Canis
Robert is a professional freelance photographer with over 25 years experience in photographing wildlife and landscapes. He studied photography at Paddington College School of Photography and, at the age of 19, gained his ARPS (Associate of the Royal Photographic Society) in the nature category, one of the youngest ever to do so.
He is represented by several leading picture libraries and regularly runs photography workshops both in the UK and Europe. Robert has twice been Highly Commended in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, awarded the Royal Photographic Society’s Gold Medal in their annual international competition and, this year, obtained a Highly Commended in the Environmental Photographer of the Year which attracted over 10,000 entries from 105 countries.
Paul Stevens
Paul is the Reserve Warden at WWT Arundel Wetland Centre in charge of conservations projects, maintaining specialised wetland habitats and overseeing the collection of wildfowl from around the world.
An enthusiastic, semi-professional photographer, Paul writes and shoot images for his weekly column in the Chichester Observer newspaper. Many of Paul’s images have been published in books and leaflets produced by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.
WWT Castle Espie
Martin Lamb
Martin Lamb is a recently retired physicist. He now has more time to spend on his lifelong interests in photography and bird watching and enjoys the many challenges of bird photography. He won the Tom Ennis Cup for his portfolio in the 2011 Work of Northern Ireland Bird Photographers competition and recently was overall winner of the 2011 Roy Finlay Memorial Natural History competition held this year at WWT Castle Espie. Martin is a member of the Northern Ireland Ornithologists' Club and of the Belfast Photo Imaging Club.
Daniel McCaughan
Dr Daniel McCaughan is the President of NIPA, the Northern Ireland Photographic Association which is the Federation of all the Camera Clubs in Northern Ireland affiliated to the Photographic Association of Great Britain.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, an Accredited Senior Imaging Scientist, and has been involved with digital cameras and imaging since their invention and with electronic cameras for even longer!
He is a keen photographer, especially of wildlife and natural history, with a particular interest in macro-photography.
Dave Craig
Dave has been an active birder for the best part of 40 years and a volunteer at WWT Castle Espie since 2000. He has been a member of the Northern Ireland Ornithologists’ Club for a number of years, and is a past committee member, past Treasurer and past Chairman. Nowadays as Secretary to the Club’s Photographic Sub-committee, he helps to organise the annual Work of Northern Ireland Bird Photographers show, each March in the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
He brings in professional wildlife photographers to judge the entry and the work has brought him into contact with such notables as Dave Tipling, Chris Gomersall, Tony and Mark Hamblin, Dave Cromac, Jari Peltomäki, Dickie Bird, and the late Gordon Langsbury. From them he has learnt that judging is not an exact science, and that while there are general principles governing what makes a good photograph, there is also an emotional component. For Dave, an arresting photograph comes from a mix of technical excellence and sentiment.
WWT London
Iain Green
At eight years old Iain wrote his first book ‘Attracting Wildlife to your Compost Heap’; sadly it was never published! However, those early jottings were the start of a lifelong passion for wildlife and since 1997 he has worked as a professional wildlife photographer and author of three published books.
Iain has spent ten years studying wild tigers in the Indian jungles, but now is most often found exploring the urban jungles on our doorstep.
Martin Senior
Martin has worked at London Wetland Centre since 1999 (taking on the role of General Manager in 2008). Over this time Martin has seen the habitats and wildlife mature, and with it the wealth of photographic opportunities.
A keen photographer himself, Martin has combined his creative skills with his professional knowledge to take many landscape and wildlife pictures that are used by the centre for publicity materials and for decorative purposes.
Catherine Starling & Jamie Wyver
Catherine and Jamie work in the marketing department and are constantly on the lookout for photographs portraying the centre’s wildlife as well as landscape shots which show the magnificent scenery to its best advantage throughout the seasons.
They are keenly aware of the types of photos that the media request and use this knowledge to bring a pragmatic edge to the judging. In addition to his day job, Jamie is a keen photographer and many of his photographs have been used on the centre’s website.
WWT Martin Mere
Ben Osborne (head judge)
Ben Osbourne is the official photographer for the BBC programme, Planet Earth, with Sir David Attenborough, winner of the ‘Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year’ in 2007 and judge for the 2011 British Wildlife Photography Awards. He has been a freelance photographer for 25 years, specialising in wildlife and landscape photography but also shoots a wide variety of other environmental subjects ranging from oil spills to fell running.
He has worked on every continent photographing a diverse range of flora and fauna and gaining a wealth of experiences. Best known for his images of Antarctica in the book of the BBC series ‘Life in the Freezer’, Ben works regularly with BBC film crews taking publicity and editorial stills for major wildlife series and his work has been published in numerous publications including National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Geo, Radio Times and even Hello magazine!
Alan Saunders
Alan Saunders is an inspirational International award winning amateur wildlife photographer based in Stockport, Cheshire. UK. Alan has a passion for the natural world and his immense dedication and talent are evident in his images. He is heavily influenced one of the worlds great wildlife photographers Andy Rouse and now uses all of his free time going out with a camera to capture wildlife.
Alan has won a gold medal for best set of four images entered in the 29th Northern Counties International. In 2009 and 2011 he was short listed in the British Wildlife Photography Awards.
Craig Jones
Craig Jones captures the beauty of the natural world with his creative and emotional attachment to nature at the very heart of each photo, creating a unique and artistic refection of his time in the field.
Craig’s journey to become a wildlife photographer was born out of a love and fascination of the natural world from a young age upon receiving my first Wildlife book called Animal World. This was an 8th birthday present from his Mum and started my love and fascination for the natural world. This ‘lose yourself to nature ‘ approach enables him to get close enough to capture the animal’s beauty and behaviour which both feature strongly in his photography, showing a wild animal within their natural habitat is the foundation to my work today through the images he sees then frames through my camera’s view finder.
WWT Washington
Alan Hewitt
Alan Hewitt is a landscape and wildlife photographer based in the county of Northumberland in the north of England. "I consider myself fortunate to be surrounded by beautiful countryside and coastline, together with a wealth of wildlife which all combine to offer fantastic photographic opportunities," he says.
Alan is a self-taught photographer and in his ‘day job’, he works for the National Health Service as part of an Accident & Emergency ambulance crew. "Spending many hours in a peaceful wildlife hide then processing and producing a final print or publishing a digital file is a great distraction and escape from the pressures of my job and the distress I often witness," he added.
He has held exhibitions of landscape and wildlife photography in and around Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Northumberland, including the Art Works Ouseburn Gallery. His popular prints sell through local outlets and also internationally through his website.
Alan recently became WWT Washington’s resident volunteer photographer, providing the centre with photographs documenting the conservation and introduction of wildlife, as well as the changes and developments of habitats around the reserve.
Craig Thompson
Craig Thompson is head of content for the Sunderland Echo, one of the North East’s largest daily newspapers. With a decade’s experience of working for the regional press under his belt, he has a keen eye for what makes a great picture, including the way in which it tells a story.
