Wow! This year we set a new record for entries. Thank you to the 43 photographers who entered 188 photos in the 2018 Refuge Photo Contest. This year there were six categories plus a special youth category for those ages 16 and under. The judges will be very busy over the next couple of months reviewing all of the entries and selecting the winners.

Winners will be announced at our Fall Festival, September 15, 2018 at 11:30 a.m. in the Helen C. Fenske Visitor Center. It’s a fun event with commentary from the judges and an opportunity to hear the photographer’s stories about what it took to capture the winning pictures. During the afternoon, we’ll be playing a slide show of all of the 2018 entries. Plan to come and be sure to bring your family. Fall Festival is a free, fun, day-long event with guided walks, exhibits, crafts and activities for kids, archery, bluebird box construction … and hot dogs on the grill. 

We now have a digital library with over 1,000 contest entries with an incredible diversity of images – all types of subjects in all seasons. These photos have been used in magazine articles as well as our own newsletters, social media and website posts. We also fill requests from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for their publications and posts and we have updated the photo frames in the Visitor Center with contest entries. In the Visitor Center Discovery Den, we play the slide show of all 2018 entries all year long, amazing our visitors with the incredible variety of wildlife and beauty of Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. This digital library is truly a treasure that cannot be duplicated – thanks to the generosity of all the contest participants.