Photography News 06

Competitions

INTERVIEW

Gardening for gold Set up by a circle of garden photography pros, the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) is in its eighth year. Co-founder and managing director, Philip Smith gives us a behind-the-scenes insight into what is considered to be the most coveted competition of its kind

BELOW Springtime Rivalry, by Martha Cabey, Wildlife in the Garden 2013 winner.

Most entries come from the UK, but we’ve actually had more winners from overseas. This year, there are more entries coming from overseas, particularly Poland, Italy and the USA; those are the big territories, as well as Australia. How are the judges selected? How do you put together your judging panel? We get a mixture of professional experiences so we have three of the leading garden photographers on the panel this year, Clive Nichols, Andrew Lawson and Paul Debois. We have a representative from the Royal Photographic Society, which is one of our partners, and that’s Ray Spence. Then we have a range of people from the world of magazines and publishing; we have people from publishing at Kew

one in Portugal at Monserrate Palace in Sintra, a world heritage site outside Lisbon. We’ve had two exhibitions in New York Botanical Garden in the States. We have an annual exhibition in Bavaria, Germany at Schloss Dennenlohe and we’ve had two exhibitions in Italy. How many entries did IGPOTY receive in its first year? And despite its international tag we presume the contest is predominately popular in the UK, but are numbers of overseas entrants increasing? We received 15,000 in 2007 and last year there were 20,000 entries. The growth has been in the scope and scales of the exhibitions and the proliferation around the UK and the world.

Interview by Megan Croft

Many of our readers will not have heard of the contest, so can you give us some background? International Garden Photographer of the Year is the world’s premier competition and exhibition specialising in garden, plant, flower and botanical photography. It is run in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and is in its eighth year. There are eight eclectic categories to enter and a special section for people under 16 years of age. The competition is open to everyone anywhere in the world and there is no distinction drawn between professional and amateur photographers. The heart of the project is to do with our association with Kew. The work that Kew does with plant and environmental conservation is based on world-class scientific research and what we hope to do is provide an interface between the science and the general public. The competition seeks to underpin the key messages about the vital importance of plants in the world that Kew wants to get across. Without plants there is no life on the planet. It’s an accessible and enjoyable way of helping people to see just how wonderful plants are. I have been working as a professional garden photographer for about 15 years and I had taken part in a couple of exhibitions at Kew Gardens and was also a member of the Professional Garden Photographers’ Association. Then in 2007 a few people decided to create a new exhibition called International Garden Photographer of the Year and I was one of those people. And I’ve continued with it ever since. It started out as a UK-based competition and I guess it still is in some ways, but it’s expanded a lot in terms of its international scope and the number of exhibitions we do. The whole project is run in association with Kew Gardens and at first we only had one exhibition a year at Kew but now we have half a dozen in the UK and other ones outside the UK so that’s been the main area of expansion. How did you become involved in the competition? Have there been any significant changes in the competition since it was founded? Can you tell us more about where the exhibition of the best entries gets shown? The main exhibition is held annually at Kew, with a rolling programme of touring exhibitions in the UK and all over the world. Exhibitions are also linked to events such as workshops and lectures on garden photography. We’ve got an exhibition starting in Australia at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney; we have

Photography News | Issue 6