Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2024
The Gallery at The Arc, Winchester
27 September 2024 – 8 January 2025
The Gallery at The Arc in Winchester will be the first venue in the UK to display the 2024 finalists of an international photography award.
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, which this year are sponsored by global brand Nikon, have been running since 2015, and celebrate the hilarity of the natural world whilst at the same time expanding awareness of a sustainable future and highlighting actions for its preservation. Since its inception, the competition has grown into a global, viral phenomenon, with the 2024 awards attracting submissions from over 3500 entrants. There are nine categories, including mammals, birds, fish and insects, as well as opportunities for entrants under 16 and under 25. The 2024 entries have been judged by a panel of experts drawn from a variety of fields, including competition founder, Paul Joynson-Hicks MBE, and two well-known names from wildlife and comedy broadcast, Kate Humble and Hugh Dennis. This year’s winners will be announced on 10 December at a ceremony in London.
As well as images from the 2024 competition, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2024 exhibition will also showcase winning photographs from previous years, which have been specially selected by Winchester Go LD, a charity that enables adults with learning disabilities to live life to the full with the choices and independence that they want.
Tom Sullam, chair of the judging panel and competition director, commented: “The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards undoubtedly portray animals in all their glorious, entertaining beauty - who couldn’t laugh out loud at an eagle looking through its back legs or a warthog’s bottom! But underlying this is a more serious message. We see the humour in the photographs as a way to engage people with the threats that these same animals face, and to understand animals and the issues that affect them, we need to empathise with them as fellow inhabitants of the same planet.”
Kirsty Rodda, visual exhibitions manager at Hampshire Cultural Trust, which manages and operates The Arc, said: “This is the first time that we’ve welcomed the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards to The Gallery, and we’re thrilled that Winchester will be the first place in the world to see the finalists – and in December, the winners – of this superb competition on public display.”
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2024 exhibition runs in The Gallery at The Arc in Winchester until 8 January 2025. More information about the exhibition, including admission prices, can be found at https://www.arcwinchester.org.uk/event/comedy-wildlife-photography-awards-2024