Garden for Wildlife® Photo Contest
Help & FAQs
General Questions
The Garden for Wildlife® Photo Contest (GFWPC) is open to all photographers worldwide who are at least 13 years of age, except employees and board members of NWF, their immediate families, and individuals living in the same household as such employees and board members (“Entrants”). NWF reserves the right to verify, in its sole judgment, Entrants eligibility. Entrants 13 to 17 years of age (“Youth Entrants”) MUST enter only the Youth category (described below) and MUST obtain verified parental or guardian consent as set forth herein prior to entering the GFWPC. Entrants 18 years or older (“General Entrants”) are prohibited from entering the Youth category.
Your photo does not have to be taken in your own garden! This photo contest focuses on highlighting “backyard wildlife”, but this does not mean it has to be taken in your backyard. We define “backyard wildlife” to include any animals, plants, and fungi that benefit from green spaces where people are a dominant factor. While this may include your own backyard garden, it also includes places like parks, community green spaces, school gardens, nature centers, roadside habitat, balcony gardens, places of worship, workplaces, and so much more!
These wildlife gardens are incredibly important in human-dominated environments as they provide habitat that may have been destroyed when the land was developed for housing or business.
Your photo does not need to be taken in 2025 to qualify. You can submit photos from any year! If you’ve been taking nature photos for years, you likely already have quite a few great shots that would fit into our current submission categories.
No, we invite entrants from all over the world to enter
The contest open dates run from August 4th, 2025 through September 19th, 2025.
Once the contest closes, our judges need time to view all the photos and make final decisions. Winners will be notified directly via email or phone call by January 31st, 2026. Please ensure the email and phone number you enter are correct to ensure that you receive this notification should you win.
We also recommend checking your email occasionally from October through December. We may reach out to get more information about your photo as part of the judging process.
The winning photos will then be announced publicly in the Spring 2026 digital edition of the National Wildlife magazine in early April 2026. All winning photos will be shared through the online edition of the National Wildlife 2026 spring edition.
Your fee helps support NWF's work to protect wildlife and wild places.
The National Wildlife Federation greatly appreciates when photographers choose to donate some of their images. These donations help support our mission to protect wildlife and habitats. If you wish to donate image(s) to NWF for use in furthering its mission, please check the appropriate box for each image you wish to donate during the uploading process. By donating image(s) to NWF, you retain all rights and title to the image(s), and you assign NWF a joint ownership interest in the image(s) under Copyright laws for NWF’s use. By checking the box and agreeing to donate the image(s) to NWF, you agree that all writing and signature requirements under the law are satisfied. Again, NWF greatly appreciates all image donations, which will be used to support NWF’s charitable mission: Uniting all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in a rapidly changing world. See explanation here.
Grand Prize: $1,000 cash prize
Runner-Up: $500 cash prize
Category Winners (5 total): Each will receive a gift card to Wild Birds Unlimited ($100 value)
Runner-Up Category Winners (5 total): Each will receive a visa gift card ($25 value)
Honorable Mentions: Personalized digital certificate and a free one-year digital subscription of National Wildlife
All winning images will be published on our website and may be promoted through our social media channels.
This is a separate contest from the National Wildlife® Photo Contest and previous Garden for Wildlife® Photo Contests. Everyone must create an account to enter.
This year’s photo contest categories are:
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Native Plants in the Garden
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Wildlife in the Garden
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Candid and Funny Moments in the Garden
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Small Space Gardens and Habitat
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Youth Category (Ages 13-17)
To learn more about these categories and see some examples of what may be appropriate for each category, read our blog here!
No, youth photographers can submit their photos to the contest for free! Please note that photographers ages 13-17 should only submit photos to the “Youth Category (Ages 13-17)” and not any other contest categories.
When creating your account, select "youth entrant". Then, once you choose your photo submission package, simply use the discount code GFWYOUTH at checkout to have your submission fee waived! This discount code will only work for youth entrant accounts.
Photographers are not limited in the number of photos they can submit to the contest, so if you use up all of the photo spots provided by your photo package, you can simply add another photo package and use the discount code again!
Entry Step-By-Step
Click here to download.
(After the download, the PDF entry guide may be in your "Downloads" or "My Downloads" folder in your computer.)
Questions About Entries
Photos must be at least 1,600 pixels wide (if a horizontal image) or 1,600 pixels tall (if a vertical image). Larger images are acceptable and may improve your photos’ quality. There is a maximum file size of 50 megabytes per image. Photos must be color and should be in RGB or sRGB format. All photographs should accurately reflect the subject matter and the scene as it appeared. Photos that have been digitally altered beyond standard optimization will be disqualified. Acceptable changes include adjustments to color, contrast, brightness and sharpness; removal of dust and scratches; cropping; and use of HDR (High Dynamic Range), where multiple exposures of the same scene are combined for a greater tonal range, and similar processes for extended depth of field. Such modifications must be disclosed. Changes that are not acceptable include photo composites (combination of two or more photos, not of the same scene); the addition, duplication, deletion or moving of objects in the photos; black-and-white conversions or the use of artistic digital filters and effects. Examples of artistic filters and effects are watercolor, neon glow, posterizing, stained glass, and others which do not show the scene as it occurred in nature.
"Upload" is to select an image from your computer and send it to the photo application/entry page and complete relevant information about the photo. "Submit" is the final stage to send the image to be judged. Please note that photos are not actually entered into the contest or made viewable by others or sharable until the contest fee is paid.
Do not include photographs of pets, domestic animals, any captive animals at game farms or zoos, research facilitates, or rehabilitation centers, or animals from such facilities photographed elsewhere with handler’s control. Please do not include images of wild animals being handled by people or images where wild animals have been handled in order to “pose” them (i.e. a butterfly being placed on a plant by a person in order to get a photo). Such images will be disqualified.
Previously published photos may be entered; however, please include information on when and where the photos appeared. Winning photos from other competitions may also be entered, but include the name of the contests and the years they won. Such information is informative only and will not influence judges’ decisions.
No, each photographer must agree to the contest rules and therefore is required to submit their own work individually. To recognize your group, please note in your photo entry submission any relevant club or group information.
Yes. Acceptable changes include adjustments to color, contrast, brightness and sharpness; removal of dust and scratches; cropping; and use of HDR (High Dynamic Range), where multiple exposures of the same scene are combined for a greater tonal range, and similar processes for extended depth of field. Such modifications must be disclosed.
Changes that are not acceptable include photo composites (combination of two or more photos, not of the same scene); the addition, duplication, deletion or moving of objects in the photos; black-and-white conversions or the use of artistic digital filters and effects. Examples of artistic filters and effects are watercolor, neon glow, posterizing, stained glass, and others which do not show the scene as it occurred in nature.
Yes. Your photo can be watermarked. It is recommended that the watermark not interfere with the scene of your photo.
While you technically can use your phone or tablet to login to your account, pay for a photo package, and submit photos, our photo contest platform works best when accessed on a computer. We highly recommend using a computer to purchase a photo package and to upload and submit photos. Using a phone or tablet may lead to technical issues when entering payment methods or uploading and submitting photos. These issues may be most easily resolved by switching over to a computer to complete this process.
If you have photos that you took on your phone, you can upload them to a computer and then submit them to the contest via the computer!
Registering or Resetting User ID and Password
If you forget your user ID or password, you can retrieve it from the login page.
Technical Difficulties Uploading Photos
No, you may upload some of them and then return to the upload more at a later time. After a photo has been submitted, it cannot be edited nor deleted. However, if an entry has not been submitted to be judged, it will be marked as "Incomplete" and photo information can be edited and categories switched.
We will not be accepting photographs by mail.
First and foremost, save a backup of the originals. Software such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Microsoft Office Picture Manager will help you resize and save copies of your images. Look for resize or adjust size in the menus. There are also a number of online resources for resizing photographs.
Vertical images taken on mobile devices may appear sideways when uploaded. These images are oriented horizontally, but mobile phones have built-in software which rotates images for mobile viewing. If you are uploading any vertical images taken on a mobile phone, please rotate the image using photo software of your choice prior to uploading your images.
Please also be aware that vertical photos will always appear sideways in the thumbnail of the image. So long as you ensured that the image you uploaded was correctly oriented, this is not anything to worry about. When the thumbnail is clicked and the image enlarges, the photo will appear the correct way up. This will not effect the judging of the image.
Accepted entries cannot be deleted. Images that has the status of either "Completed" or "Incomplete" can be deleted or modified. To modify an entry click on the entry's title to open its Photo Details page and replace old photo information and upload a replacement photo, then resubmit it as a new entry.
There are a few indicators on your Entries & Payment page.
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Accepted: Denotes a successful submitted image. Entry cannot be edited or deleted.
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Completed: Denotes entry needs to be submitted to the judges by clicking on the “Submit” button, this will turn the status to “Accepted”.
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Incomplete: Denotes the entry’s application form is not completely filled out, click on the entry’s title to open and fill out missing information on the Photo Details form. Then Submit the entry to be accepted.
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Instead of deleting an incomplete image you don't want, click on the image's Entry Title and replace it with a new upload.
Didn't find your questions here? Please do not hesitate to contact us.
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PO Box 1583, Merrifield VA 22116-1583
1-800-822-9919 (M-F 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. EST)
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