PEEC’s Monthly Photo Contest

Submit your photos for our next photo contest by emailing them to photos@peecnature.org or tagging us on social media using #PEECnature. The December theme is “Winterscapes”, and submissions are due on Monday, December 2, 2024. We’d love to see the ways you all capture this theme!

Stop by the Los Alamos Nature Center to view the finalists for this month’s theme, “Warm Colors and Tones,” and vote for the winner. Plan your visit here.

Upcoming 2024 themes:

Past 2024 themes:

Upcoming 2025 themes:

October 2024 Contest Winner (Shades of Orange)

Head of a Red Crossbill by Rozelle Wright

PEEC’s Monthly Photo Contest

Each month, the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) runs a photo contest at the Los Alamos County Nature Center. Five photos are continuously displayed in the nature center, where visitors can view them and then vote for their favorite photo by putting money into one (or more) of five labeled canisters below the display. The canister with the largest amount of money wins the contest for that month.

After the completion of the contest for the month of September, winners of the contests for the previous 12 months will be used to create a calendar for the next year (with the permission of the photographer). This calendar will be available for sale to the public at the Los Alamos Nature Center Gift Shop.

This contest is a modest fund-raising activity for PEEC. The funds raised by the photo voting process and any profits realized through the eventual sale of calendars will be used to support PEEC’s yearly operations.

The Photo Submission Process

A call for photos is announced each month. There will be a theme announced for solicited photos (i.e., birds, mammals, scenery, clouds, etc.). Please submit images to photos@peecnature.org or tag us on social media using the hashtag #PEECnature.

Any images submitted should be photographed on the Pajarito Plateau, although plant or wildlife species that live on the Pajarito Plateau but are photographed elsewhere may also be considered. Photographers wishing to have a photograph of their original work considered will make a digital version of the image available, in jpeg format, at a resolution of at least 1920 pixels in the horizontal dimension. The computer display on which the photos will be viewed is 1920 x 1080 pixels in size, so photos should be sized to best match this (16:9) aspect ratio. However, PEEC may also use exceptional photos in the “portrait” orientation, they would just not take up the entire screen and may not be able to be printed in the calendar due to their orientation. PEEC photo editors reserve the option to crop and resize photos to the 1920 x 1080 format if needed; photographers not wanting this to happen should indicate so on their submission email.

Photographers retain full copyright control over their images; by submitting an image for consideration, the copyright owner indicates his/her permission to allow PEEC to reproduce, distribute, display publicly, and/or modify the image on a royalty-free basis. Please remove any watermarks before submitting. The photographer waives any right to monetary compensation for the use of the image for the contest or (if a monthly contest winner) for use in the yearly calendar. PEEC will seek additional permissions from the photographer if any other uses are contemplated. Photographers whose images are included in the yearly calendar will receive two complimentary calendars and a bumper sticker.

If any identifiable persons are part of the photograph, the photographer must also provide to PEEC a release from that person to use the person(s) image in the contest/calendar.

Members of the PEEC staff will select five finalist images from those submitted each month. Those images will then be displayed in the Los Alamos Nature Center for popularity voting, as described above.

If you submit photos for a future month in advance, please include the month in the subject line.

Previous Winners