Belfast Zoo's 33rd Annual Photographic Competition winners announced!

The winners of Belfast Zoo's annual photographic competition were announced at a special awards ceremony, in the elephant and giraffe house, today.

The competition, which has been running for 33 years, is sponsored by HB and challenges budding and amateur photographers to creatively photograph the animals and scenes of the zoo; capturing the wonder of nature, exhibiting photographic excellent and displaying high quality skills and a great eye for a 'zooper' photo!

Zoo curator and competition judge, Alyn Cairns, said "Despite the fact that the competition has been running for more than 30 years, we are always stunned by the standard of the submissions, as well as the quality and skill demonstrated by entrants. With 370 entries, the photographs certainly highlighted the beauty and diversity of the species that we care for and the winning entries have ranged from snaps of tiny pied tamarins to our beautiful giants, the Asian elephants and Rothschild's giraffes. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsor, HB, for their continued support of the competition. I would also like to praise the efforts of everyone who entered the competition this year, as well as our winners."

The winners were as follows:

Category A - best picture taken by a club photographer

1st prize and overall winner – Gareth O'Cathain (Belfast Photo Imaging Club)
2nd prize – William Allen (Central Photographic Association)
3rd prize – Robert Sergeant (Central Photographic Association)
Highly commended – Stephen Haydon (Central Photographic Association)
Highly commended – Raymond Hughes (Merville Newtownabbey Photographic Club)
Highly commended - Gareth O'Cathain (Belfast Photo Imaging Club)

Category B - best picture taken by a zoo visitor

1st prize – Philip Hutton
2nd prize – Philip Hutton
3rd prize – Gemma Vennard
Highly commended – Susan Wenlock
Highly commended – Katie Price
Highly commended – Fiona Beattie

Category C - best black and white picture

1st prize – Peter Lennon
2nd prize- Gareth O'Cathain
3rd prize – Joe Beattie
Highly commended – Robert Sergeant
Highly commended – Joe Beattie
Highly commended – Fiona Beattie

Category D - best funny caption

1st prize – Joe Beattie
Highly commended – Daniel Marshall
Highly commended – Gwyneth Sergeant

Category E - best picture taken by someone under 16

1st prize – Alexander Allen
Highly commended – Fiona Beattie
Highly commended – Caleb Wenlock

You can see all of the winning photographs from Belfast Zoo's annual photographic competition 2016 at www.belfastzoo.co.uk/photocomp and don't forget to enter the 2017 competition!