Awards and Categories

Eric Hosking Award
This award encourages and rewards te talents of young photographers aged 18 to 26. You must submit a portfolio of 10 images that you think represents your best work. The judges will select the final portfolio. Prize £1,000.

Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife
This category raises awareness of endangered species through photographic excellence. The images must be memorable, but the species photographed must also be categorised in the 2006 IUCN Red List as critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or near-threatened at an international or national level. See www.redlist.org. Prize £1,000.

One Earth Award (NEW)
A new award seeking to highlight the interaction between humans and nature. Images should demonstrate the power and resilience of our planet and its impact on us. They can also show our connection with and dependence or effect on the natural world. Images can be graphic or symbolic, but must be thought-provoking, memorable and encourage respect for our planet. Prize £1,000.

Adult categories
You can enter up to three digital images or colour slides in each of the following categories. Each category has a first prize of £500 and a second prize of £250.

1. Animals in Their Environment
Images in this category must be powerful and memorable, showing the relationship between the animal subject and the place it lives or the environment in which it is pictured.

2. Animal Behaviour: Birds

3. Animal Behaviour: Mammals

4. Animal Behaviour: All Other Animals
Submissions must show memorable, unusual or striking behaviour. As with all categories, originality is key.

5. The Underwater World
Submissions must feature images of marine or freshwater life. With around 70 per cent of the Earth's surface under water, the scope here is huge.

6. Animal Portraits
Portraits should capture the character or spirit of the subject and focus principally on it. The key here is striking originality.

7. In Praise of Plants
This is the category for pictures that highlight the beauty, diversity and importance of all forms of plantlife.

8. Urban & Garden Wildlife
Urban wildlife is often overlooked, but can be a wonderful source of unusual compostiions and strikig juxtapositions of wild animals or plants in urban settings.

9. Nature in Black & White
Images in this category can be submitted digitally, as slides or as prints. The subject can be or include any wild landscape, animal, plant or other living organism. The judges will be looking for skillful use of the black and white medium.

10. Creative Visions of Nature
Photographs should reveal new ways of seeing natural subjects or scenes, representing them in an imaginative or abstract way. Judges will be looking for originality and artistic vision.

11. Wild Places
Entries submitted to this category must show scenes that are truly wild and awesome. They should convey a sense of wonder and wilderness and be taken in wild and/or remote place.

12. Wild Choice NEW
Open to fresh and new images that you feel don't have a place in other categories. Anything goes as long as pictures are of the natural world and were taken after January 2005. Judges will be looking for originality.

Shell Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2006
If you're 17 or under, this is your part of the competition. You can enter up to six images – digital, prints or slides – of any wild animals, plants or landscapes. The judges will be looking for original, beautiful or striking shots rather than rare or exotic subjects. Creatures or places close to home that you know well or have easy access to are good choices of subject. The way you frame and crop your subject is as important as getting the focus right, and the level and type of light is a vital ingredient.

This title is awarded to the young photographer whose image is of the age categories below. He or she will receive a prize of £500 and a day out with a wellknown wildlife photographer.

Junior categories
The Shell Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition has three age categories. The winner of each category will receive a prize of £250 and a runner-up prize of £100 will be given. You may enter up to six images (colour prints or slides or digital images on CD) in your age category.
A. 10 years and under
B. 11-14 years old
C. 15–17 years old

For more information about the competition, visit the official Wildlife Photographer of the Year website at www.nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto