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Wildlife photography contests worth entering
The wildlife photography contests worth entering are Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Natural History Museum), the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, and the Audubon Photography Awards. All three are open to amateurs, accept any camera, and — more usefully — show you what separates a good wildlife shot from a forgettable one: fieldcraft.
Last reviewed June 2026 · entry dates rotate annually
Why a contest list belongs on a marketplace about odds
Because the winning images are a fieldcraft lesson hiding in plain sight. Almost none of them are won on gear. They're won on being in the right place, at the right hour, with the patience to wait for the moment the animal reads. That's the same thing that decides whether your one big trip works — which is the whole reason Lyferr ranks guides by who actually delivers the species. Study the winners and you're studying the skill you're paying a specialist guide for.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Natural History Museum, London
The biggest nature photography competition in the world — over 60,000 entries a year, run by London's Natural History Museum, now in its sixth decade. Open to everyone, from wilderness to urban subjects, across multiple categories.
- Entry fee
- ~£35 for up to 25 images; waived for ages 18–26 and certain countries
- Deadline
- Early December each year (confirm on official page)
- What it rewards
- Storytelling and the decisive moment. Winners tend to be images where behavior, light, and composition land at once — not the sharpest portrait, the truest moment.
Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
The one everyone shares. Free to enter, any camera brand, no professional requirement — you just need a genuinely funny moment of wild behavior. Built explicitly around "conservation through competition."
- Entry fee
- Free
- Deadline
- 30 June 2026 (dates rotate annually)
- Limits
- Up to 10 images and 2 videos; JPEGs under 4MB
- What it rewards
- Timing and patience — the funny frame is almost always the unrepeatable split-second
Audubon Photography Awards
The major bird-focused award in the Americas — and the most relevant to where Lyferr operates. Recent cycles added South America categories, with free entry for residents of Colombia and Chile.
- Entry fee
- $15/image for US/Canada; free for Colombia & Chile residents; free for youth (ages 13–17)
- Deadline
- Early March each year
- Prize
- Grand Prize has run to $5,000 plus an expedition
- What it rewards
- Technical quality, originality, and artistic merit — and increasingly, the bird life of Colombia and the wider Neotropics
A note on the Journal of Wildlife Photography
Search interest in the Journal of Wildlife Photography has climbed sharply — it's a subscription publication of technique and inspiration, not a contest. Worth knowing it exists if you want a steady feed of field technique between trips.
What the winners actually teach
Strip the awards down and the same lessons repeat:
- 1
Behavior beats portraits. A bird doing something — calling, hunting, displaying — almost always beats a sharp bird sitting still.
- 2
Light is chosen, not found. Winners shoot the golden hours and the weather most people wait out. Dawn and dusk again.
- 3
Position is everything. The frame implies the photographer was already there, low and close, before the moment happened.
- 4
Patience is the technique. The decisive second is the payoff of hours of stillness — the one thing no camera shortcuts.
Every one of those is fieldcraft, and fieldcraft is what a specialist guide brings to your trip. The award winners are doing solo, over years, what a good guide compresses into a morning.
Browse species and find the guide who can get you in position →Frequently asked questions
No guide guarantees a wild animal. These are verified track records, shown to improve your odds — not to promise an outcome.