Defenders Photo Contest: We Need Your Vote!

Wow!

What an amazing collection of images you submitted to our second annual photography contest. We received over 8,500 photos of wildlife and wild lands, including almost every type of animal imaginable and spanning the globe covering all of the continents. By and large the pictures were outstanding. Clearly, many of our Defenders friends are talented photographers!

Selecting winners from such an outstanding group of images is extremely difficult at best, and extremely frustrating at worst… The sad truth was that we had far more than ten photographs worthy of being finalists. But, there were only ten spots available. So after two days of spirited discussions and debate, our panel of five judges finally agreed on the ten photos below (in random order) to be our finalists.

[portfolio_slideshow]

Vote Now!

Now we need YOUR help. We need you to vote on your three favorite photographs and decide who will be our winners. The voting period ends noon (Eastern time) on Monday, April 4th, so cast your votes soon!

The grand-prize winner will go on a week-long photo trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks with Defenders of Wildlife longtime friend and contributor Jess Lee, who has been kind enough to donate this prize two years in a row. Six other winners will receive gift certificates for photographic equipment.

After the judging is complete and the winners selected, we will be letting all of you know who won and reveal the winning entries. As a special treat for you, I will put together a slide show of the final 50 photographs and show them to you a week after the prizewinners have been announced. This will give you an opportunity to see more of the terrific photographs we received and to decide which ones you would have selected for the ten finalists.

So, please, vote for the photos of your choice!