Wildlife Photography Contest 2026 | Nature InFocus

Nature inFocus Photography Awards 2026 is now closed for submissions.

All you need to know

Categories

Explore themes like behavior, portraits, conservation focus and creative nature photography

Rewards

Learn about the rewards and recognition awaiting this year’s winning photographers.

FAQs

Find quick answers to your questions about submissions, eligibility, deadlines, and more.

Jury

Meet the panel of experts who will evaluate your work.

Partners

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Categories

A world of opportunities for photographers to showcase their skills

Nature inFocus Photographer of the Year

Submit a series of 6 to 10 photographs that together tell a powerful story. Whether it’s a compelling conservation story or a unique observation from the natural world, let the images tell a story.

Animal Behaviour

Nature is always at work, often in ways we rarely see. Capture animal behaviours that are unexpected, seldom witnessed, or simply captivating. These are moments that remind us how much there is still to learn.

Animal Portraits

Go beyond the surface and capture an animal’s essence. Through mood, expression, or gaze, let your photograph offer a glimpse into the animal’s character, personality or emotion.

Ramki Sreenivasan Conservation Photography Award

In memory of Ramki Sreenivasan, this category honours photographs that shed light on conservation. Submit images that raise awareness, inspire thought, and tell urgent or hopeful stories about protecting nature.

Supported by:

Creative Nature Photography

Push the boundaries of how we experience nature through your lens. Experiment with technique, composition, or visual storytelling to create fresh and imaginative interpretations of the wild.

Wildscape & Animals in Their Habitat

Celebrate the relationship between animal and environment. Frame wildlife within the wider landscape to show how they move through, survive in, and shape the spaces they call home.

Young Photographer

Open to photographers aged 17 and below, this category invites young storytellers to share how they see the natural world, whether through behaviour, conservation, or a creative lens.

Himalayas on the Edge

The Indian Himalayan region is at risk. Show us what we're leaving behind - the waste, the pollution, the wildlife lost in the careless trail of human presence.

  • Images only acceptable from the Indian Himalayan region
  • Should show wildlife among the waste.
Supported by:

Rewards

Nature inFocus Photographer of the Year

tag

₹1,00,000

Certificate

Trophy

Om System
RR Logo
  • 4 nights free stay (meals included) 
  • 4 safaris
View Property
leo Logo
MeruVann Logo
  • 3 nights stay (meals included)
View Property
winnerbadge

₹35,000

Runner Up

Certificate

Trophy

Special Mention

Certificate

Plaque

Young Photographer

tag

₹50,000

Certificate

Trophy

RR Logo
  • 2 nights free stay (meals included)
  • 2 safaris
View Property
Leo Foto
Om System
winnerbadge

₹35,000

Runner Up

Certificate

Trophy

Special Mention

Certificate

Plaque

Animal Portraits

tag

₹50,000

Certificate

Trophy

RR Logo
  • 2 nights free stay (meals included)
  • 2 safaris
View Property
Leo Foto
Dholes Den Logo
  • 3 nights free stay (meals included)
View Property
winnerbadge

₹35,000

Runner Up

Certificate

Trophy

Special Mention

Certificate

Plaque

Himalayas on the Edge

tag

₹50,000

Certificate

Trophy

RR Logo
  • 2 nights free stay (meals included)
  • 2 safaris
View Property
Leo Foto
Pangoloka Logo
  • 4 nights free stay (meals included)
View Property
winnerbadge

₹35,000

Runner Up

Certificate

Trophy

Pangoloka Logo
  • 2 nights free stay (meals included)
View Property

Special Mention

Certificate

Plaque

Other Categories

tag

₹50,000

Certificate

Trophy

RR Logo
  • 2 nights free stay (meals included)
  • 2 safaris
View Property
Leo Foto
winnerbadge

₹35,000

Runner Up

Certificate

Trophy

Special Mention

Certificate

Plaque

Jury

Meet the experts who will choose the winning images

Dr. Sanjay Kumar Shukla

IFS (Retd.) Former Member Secretary, CZA Former PCCF, MP

A retired officer of the 1992 batch of the Indian Forest Service of Madhya Pradesh Cadre. He retired in March 2025 from the post of Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF). Presently, he is working as Senior Consultant, Central Zoo Authority (CZA), Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Government of India. Previously he served as Member Secretary, Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and also had the additional charge of Additional Director, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB).

Dr. Shukla commands an extremely wide range of experience in different branches of forestry, including wildlife conservation. He also served as Field Director of Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh and Inspector General of Forests (National Afforestation & Ecodevelopment Board and Green India Mission), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Govt of India. He has also to his credit several publications relating to conservation.

A conservation photographer, with images in many national and international publications. He has received many national and international photography distinctions including AFIAP, EFIP, PPSA, GPU CR-3, GPU VIP-3, FRPA.GNG, Hon. PESGSPC, GPA- PESGSPC, Hon. VNPC and Hon. WPAI. He secured a spot among the top 10 Indian Exhibitors of 2022, recognized by the Federation of Indian Photography. He has travelled widely across all seven continents, including both polar extremes.

Payal Mehta

Naturalist

Payal Mehta is a naturalist, wildlife tour leader, and educator with a background in geology, mountaineering, and communication. After training at Kanha’s Taj Safaris lodge, she led tours across South Asia and began developing nature guide programs with local communities. She co-founded the Nature Guides Academy and has also authored nature education materials for children and park visitors.

Samreen Farooqui

Ecological Filmmaker

Samreen Farooqui is a filmmaker, producer, and commissioning editor with over 20 years of experience in non-fiction media, research, and narratives. Her work traces an India-in-transition through stories of changing socio-political realities, wildlife and environment, urban living and technology. Currently, she heads films at Roundglass Sustain, a comprehensive repository of India’s biodiversity, environmental realities, and community led conservation. She has led the commissioning and creative production of over 200 original short films, working closely with filmmaking teams, researchers, communities and field experts from across India. These films serve as powerful tools for education, advocacy, and cultural shifts in support of ecological awareness and action.

Shaaz Jung

Wildlife Photographer

Shaaz Jung is a professional wildlife photographer and cinematographer based in Bangalore, India. He specializes in documenting big cats, particularly leopards, and served as Director of Photography on the National Geographic feature film The Real Black Panther.

Shaaz’s contributions to wildlife storytelling and conservation have earned international recognition. His photographs have been widely published in National Geographic articles and featured on the covers of its renowned magazines.

Shaaz runs an eco-friendly wildlife lodge, The Bison, in Nagarhole, Karnataka. In addition, he founded a non-profit trust dedicated to providing vocational training and education to local communities living in and around forested areas in South India, while promoting eco-tourism as a tool for conservation.

Dhritiman Mukherjee

Wildlife Photographer

Dhritiman Mukherjee is one of the most respected nature, wildlife and conservation photographers from India. Dhritiman is a recipient of the Earth Heroes Award from the Royal Bank of Scotland, for inspiring people towards conservation through his images. He was also awarded the Carl Zeiss Conservation Award and Kirloskar Vasundhara Mitra Award, among many others. Dhritiman loves to work on challenging, lesser-known, endangered species and has worked all across India and in 53 countries around the world. His work has been published in the BBC Wildlife magazine, National Geographic Traveller, Lonely Planet, New York Times, Nature inFocus and more.

Curators

Rohit Varma

Rohit Varma is a marketeer by profession. He is passionate about the natural world and conservation, and is a keen wildlife photographer and filmmaker.

Kalyan Varma

Kalyan Varma is a wildlife photographer, filmmaker, naturalist and explorer specialising in environmental issues. He freelances with many of the world's leading magazines, environmental NGOs and television networks like the National Geographic and BBC.

Guidelines

All you need to know before you submit your images

Registration & Submission

Steps to sign up and
submit your entries

Technical Specification

Photo requirements for a
valid submission

Ethical Standards

Rules for responsible and
respectful photography

Judging Criteria

What the jury looks for in
each entry

FAQS

Here is a quick reference for some of the questions you might have. But do read the Terms & Conditions of the competition for the nitty-gritty. In fact, we insist you do so before submitting your images.

You should be able to find the answers to most of your queries here. Please read through the FAQs before you contact us via email at [email protected] or on WhatsApp at +91 9353064269. The team will get in touch with you within 24 hours.

The modest participation fee covers the cost of bringing together an expert panel of judges to review and score each image, as well as submission administration costs and exhibition venue hire.

The competition will close when the clock strikes 11:59 PM (India Time – UTC + 05:30) on Sunday, May 31, 2026.

No, the deadline will not be extended.

Please check your spam folder, sometimes we get grouped with the dirty bunch. Blasphemous, right?!

Again, make sure to check your spam folder, if you can’t find the email with the new password in your inbox. If you can’t find the email, go back to the login page and generate a new password using your registered email ID.

Click on the ‘Forgot Password’ button! You will be able to reset it.

No, you will have to register afresh to be able to log in and participate.

The photos you have uploaded are saved in their original form, without any changes or edits, directly in our database. What you see as thumbnails on the site are just low-resolution previews of the same images. The judges will not be looking at these previews; they will only review the original files you submitted, which are now saved in our database.

You can upload up to 35 photographs across 6 categories (Animal Behaviour, Animal Portraits, Conservation Focus, Creative Nature Photography, Wildscape & Animals in Their Habitat, Himalayas on the Edge), with no restrictions on the number of images in each category. You have the freedom to upload all 35 images in one category or to divide them across categories. In the 7th category, Nature inFocus Photographer of the Year, you can upload a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 10 images. For the Young Photographer category, you can upload up to 15 images.

Of course, not! You can submit all your entries in just one category if you so wish. However, we urge you to submit all of your best work, across categories.

The caption should ideally ‘explain’ the photograph to the viewer. A simple trick to writing a good caption is to describe the WHO-WHAT-WHY-WHERE-WHEN of the scene you have photographed. Check out our winners gallery for more insights.

Unless you are trying to highlight a wildlife conservation issue, our answer is NO.

Have you tried the ‘Save For Web’ option on Photoshop and Lightroom? You will also find tutorials online.

We recommend 72 DPI to restrict the image under 2MB. If you are able to ensure that your image is under 2MB even with a higher DPI value, feel free to process it accordingly.

You can submit photographs in any colour profile. We accept all!

Cropping is allowed as long as the original message/content of the photograph is not altered drastically.

Yes, black and white images can be submitted in any category.

Yes! You can share an image that has been created from stacked images but if your photograph is shortlisted, we will require to see all the images used for stacking.

No. You must finish reviewing your entries before the competition closes, at 11:59 PM (India Time – UTC + 05:30) on Sunday, May 31, 2026.

While we would love to send Hedwig your way (and we are working on that), we entrust this to our email servers for now. You will receive an email from us notifying you that your image/s have been shortlisted.

Due to the large volume of submissions we receive, we are unable to notify participants individually if their images haven’t been shortlisted.

While you won’t find out exactly what you have won, you will be informed if you are among the winners.

Media

International and national media coverage of the Awards

Nature inFocus photography competition 2025: flamingos, foxes and a chilled out chimp.

25 November 2025

theguardian.com

2025 Nature inFocus Winners Will Change How You See the Planet

18 November 2025

diyphotography.net

Nature inFocus Photography Awards 2024: Leopards, sharks and spiders.

22 February 2025

www.bbc.com

Winning Nature Photographs Capture the Gripping Intensity of Animal Life

24 February 2025

gizmodo.com

Striking Winners of the 2024 Nature inFocus Photography Competition

17 February, 2025

mymodernmet.com

The Powerful Winning Photos From the Nature inFocus Awards 2024

18 Feb, 2025

petapixel.com

Heartbreaking Series on Sri Lankan Elephants Wins Nature inFocus 2024

14 February, 2025

gizmodo.com

About

The Nature inFocus Photography Contest honours photographers who devote their time and effort to documenting unique natural history moments and critical conservation issues.

Every year, the Contest generates an impressive catalogue of artistic and imaginative images that add to our knowledge and understanding of the natural world. The 2026 edition marks a long endeavour to celebrate and champion nature through photography.

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