The National Biodiversity Data Centre is running a photo-story competition ‘Encounters with biodiversity’ to profile aspects of Ireland’s biodiversity and to provide a platform for photographers and naturalists to highlight their special interest. Entrants are invited to submit an original photograph with accompanying text (no more than 250 words) to describe the photograph and/or scene, the experience of taking the photograph or a piece to profile a particular aspect of Ireland’s biodiversity. The aim of the competition is to communicate the value of Ireland’s biological diversity and raise awareness of how it is changing.
Terms and conditions
The Encounters with biodiversity photo-story competition will run until 17:00hrs on Friday, 9th January 2015.
The photographs and text submitted must be the original work of the person who submits them.
A preference will be given to photographs of biodiversity in their wild, natural setting taken on the island of Ireland or its territorial waters.
A licence will be required from National Parks and Wildlife Service for photographing protected animals or birds at breeding or nesting places.
Basic enhancements to digital images are allowed, such as adjustment of brightness, contrast, etc, but significant altering of images, such as cloning and removal of subjects is not encouraged.
If photographs include recognisable people, then permission of the subjects should be obtained.
Images should be submitted as JPEG/JPG files and text in a word document, and both emailed to competition@biodiversityireland.ie.
The minimum acceptable image resolution is 1280×960 pixels and the maximum allowable file size is 5MB.
Each entry must have a short title of no more than 50 characters and the name of the entrant, eg ‘Birds at dawn – Michael O’Brien’, or ‘Life in the undergrowth – Mary Murphy’. This will appear with the photograph and text on the Data Centre’s Facebook page.
Entries received from under 18 year olds should be indicated in the subject line eg. ‘Birds at dawn – Micheal O’Brien (U18)’ or ‘Life in the undergrowth – Mary Murphy (U18)’.
Entrants will retain the full copyright of their image and text.
Entrants will licence the National Biodiversity Data Centre to use the photograph and text in promotional material of the Data Centre, but use of the material will at all times be accredited to the entrant.
The National Biodiversity Data Centre respects the intellectual property of all entrants and we ask that all Facebook users do the same. All the entrant’s material displayed on Facebook is protected by copyright and should not be copied or reproduced without the consent of the owner.
Facebook will be the only medium used for displaying entries whilst the competition is in progress.
All appropriate entries will be uploaded to an album on the National Biodiversity Data Centre’s Facebook page. The Data Centre reserves the right to reject or disqualify entrants from the competition if the subject matter is not considered appropriate to the theme, or is considered offensive, defamatory, indecent or obscene.
The top entries, based jointly on the quality of the photograph and the text, will be selected for shortlisting by the National Biodiversity Data Centre. Facebook users will be invited to give their preference for the shortlisted entries by ‘liking’ their preferred image.
The winners will be awarded by a judging panel set up by the National Biodiversity Data Centre. First prize €500, second prize €200 and third prize €100. A special prize of €200 will be given to the best entry received from entrants under 18 years of age.
By entering it is understood that you agree to the terms and conditions of the competition.
