Grab Your Camera: The Refuge Photo Contest Turns Twenty This Year
For two decades, Ridgefield's photographers — pros, hobbyists, and lucky-timing amateurs alike — have been pointing lenses at kestrels, coyotes, and foggy sunrises on the River 'S'. The 20th Annual Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Photo Contest is now open, the deadline is earlier than usual, and the winners get their work hung at BirdFest & Bluegrass. Here's how to enter — plus a look at the shots that took top honors the last two years.
If you've ever pulled over on the auto tour route because a northern harrier decided to put on a show, this one's for you. The Friends of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge and Pro Photo Supply have opened submissions for the 20th Annual Refuge Photo Contest — a Ridgefield tradition that's been turning ordinary refuge visits into gallery walls since before some of this year's high school entrants were born.
The pitch is simple: photograph something wonderful at the refuge, upload it, and you could win a $150 Pro Photo Supply gift card, a 12x18 print of your work, and a spot in the gallery showing at BirdFest & Bluegrass this fall. And honestly, the bragging rights around town might be worth more than the prizes.
The Details: Deadline, Categories & Prizes
2026 Refuge Photo Contest at a Glance
The contest is open to anyone of high school age or older, professional or amateur, anywhere in the U.S. — though let's be honest, living ten minutes from the refuge is a home-field advantage the rest of the country can't touch. Photos must have been taken within publicly accessible areas of the refuge during public hours — but they don't have to be from this year. Any shot from your archives is fair game, as long as it hasn't won before.
The Shots to Beat: Last Year's Winners
Want to know what it takes? Here's the 2025 winners' circle — five first-place images that show just how much range this little refuge has. Take them as inspiration, not a shopping list: the judges would much rather see a subject nobody's captured yet than a remake of last year's winner. You can see the full gallery, honorable mentions included, on the Friends' 2025 winners page, and the prints in person at the refuge's Community Nature Center — the contest's home now and going forward.
2025 · Birds · First Place
Zack Aurand
American Kestrel
North America's smallest falcon, caught in crisp detail. The Birds category is perennially the refuge's most competitive — this is the one that won it.
2025 · Wildlife · First Place
Steve Pickering
Coyote
A refuge coyote, immortalized. Fitting, then, that a coyote graces this year's official 20th-anniversary contest artwork.
2025 · Landscape & Structures · First Place
Mary Bucher Ross
Rainbow on the River S
Proof that you don't always need wildlife in the frame — sometimes the refuge just hands you a rainbow over the wetlands and dares you not to pull over.
2025 · Plant Life · First Place
Kathryn Caine
Ceratina Bee on Chicory Flower
Macro work at its finest — a tiny carpenter bee on a chicory bloom. Kathryn Caine is a repeat force in this category; she took Plant Life in 2024, too.
2025 · Youth · First Place
Emmett Caine
Sunset on a River S Slough
And yes — same last name. The youth title went to Emmett Caine, making the 2025 contest something of a family affair. Ridgefield's next generation of photographers is clearly already out on the trails.
And a Look Back at 2024
The 2024 crop was just as strong. Betsy Jager took the Birds category with a stunner of a northern harrier and short-eared owl sharing the frame, Zack Aurand won Wildlife with a Columbian white-tailed deer — a species whose recovery is one of the refuge's proudest stories — and Barbara Burgess claimed Landscape & Structures with an eerie, beautiful shot of the sun behind smoke, fog, and trees. Browse the whole set on the 2024 winners page, or fall down the full rabbit hole in the contest archives, which go all the way back to 2007.
Quick Questions, Quick Answers
Do I need to be a "real" photographer to enter?
No. The contest is open to professionals and amateurs alike, high school age and up. Plenty of past winners were folks with a good eye and good timing.
Can I use a photo I took last year?
Yes — the Friends confirm that photos from any time are welcome, as long as the image hasn't won the contest before and was taken within publicly accessible areas of the refuge during public hours. That folder of refuge shots on your hard drive just became contest material.
Phone photos okay?
The rules care about format and size (JPG, roughly 1500 x 2100 at 300dpi, under 10MB), not what camera you used. Modern phones can hit that easily.
Any tips for standing out?
Straight from the Friends: don't try to recreate past winners. The judges see plenty of the same photogenic heron every year — a fresh subject, an unexpected angle, or a corner of the refuge nobody else thought to shoot will serve you far better than a copy of last year's wall.
When do I find out if I won?
Finalists are notified by email first, with winners announced publicly on Pro Photo Supply's social channels in the fall — and celebrated in person at BirdFest & Bluegrass on October 3.
More from Meanwhile in Ridgefield
Entering this year? We'd love to see what you capture out there — and if your shot ends up on the wall at BirdFest & Bluegrass, tell us the story behind it. Twenty years of Ridgefield photographers can't be wrong: the refuge always delivers, you just have to show up with a camera.
Winning photographs appear courtesy of the Friends of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, with our thanks to the photographers. See every winner, past and present, at ridgefieldfriends.org.
