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Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

TOA 2019

  1. The Organiser of the Award is BirdLife Photography, a Special Interest Group of BirdLife Australia, ACN 149 124 774.
  2. Submission of an entry for the Award is deemed to indicate acceptance of these Rules & Conditions.
  3. Entry is open to anyone living in Australia.  Entry is also open to overseas members of BirdLife Australia or Birdlife Photography.  Any person involved in the administration or judging of the Award, or any member of that person’s immediate family, is not eligible for the Award.
  4. Each entry must include a completed Tom Oliver Award entry form.
  5. There as a single category for entries, which is open to persons of any age. The prize is $1,000 (AUD) and a laser engraved crystal award.
  6. Entries for the 2024 Award must be lodged between 20th November 2023 and 29th February 2024.
  7. The work submitted for the Award must be an original work that has not been previously published in a nationally circulated publication (except in BirdLife Australia publications), or made available on-line except on the BirdLife Photography or BirdLife Australia websites
  8. An Entrant may submit as many entries as they wish.  There is no entry fee.
  9. Entries may be in any form, e.g. a series of short YouTube video presentations, an e-book, a written article for a magazine, screen capture of software use, etc.  There is no stipulation as to the form or format of entries for the Award.  An entry consisting solely of a portfolio of bird photographs is NOT acceptable as an entry for the Tom Oliver Award.
  10.  Entries should be emailed to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
  11. All entries are deemed to be received at the time of receipt by the Organiser, and not at the time of posting by the Entrant.
  12. The Organiser accepts no responsibility for late, lost or misdirected entries, or entries not received by the Organiser for any reason whatsoever.

    Criteria for Entries

  13. Whilst creating their entries, Entrants must not do anything which in any way injures or causes distress to birds or animals, or destroys their habitat.
  14. Entrants are responsible for ensuring full compliance with any applicable national or international legislation and for securing any relevant permits that may be required.
  15. Any person appearing in a presentation must have given their permission to appear; this permission must be made available on request by the Organiser.
  16. All information supplied with an entry must be complete, true and accurate.  Disguising or misrepresenting the origin of a work/entry will constitute a breach of the Rules, and that entry will be ineligible for the Award.

    Judging

  17. A judging panel will be appointed by the Organiser to select the Award winners.  The Award winners will be selected on the basis of artistic and technical merit, clarity of presentation to general bird photographers, ease of distribution, innovation and the entry's ability to improve the viewer's bird photography techniques.  Judges for the 2024 award will be Tim Van Leeuwin, Mary Wheeler and Jen Carr.
  18. The winner will be selected on the basis of artistic and technical merit, clarity of presentation to general bird photographers, ease of distribution, innovation and the entrants ability to improve the viewer's bird photography techniques.
  19. In the event a winner is declared, the winner will be announced at the BirdLife Photography Biennial Conference 2024.
  20. The judging panel may select other entries for special awards or commendations.
  21. In the event that the award is without an entry of sufficient merit, the Organiser reserves the right not to present the award on this occasion

    Intellectual Property Rights

  22. Each entry must be the original work of the Entrant and must not infringe the rights of any other party.
  23. The Entrant must either be the sole owner of the copyright in the material, including any images, or have secured the written permission of the copyright owner(s), or all joint copyright owners, to enter the material and/or image(s) into the Competition.  A written copy of any such permission must be supplied to the Organiser on request.
  24. In the event that an Entrant is not the sole copyright owner of the material or images, the Entrant agrees to notify the Organiser at the date of submission, providing the names of all copyright owners.
  25. Ownership of the copyright in all material and images submitted to the Competition will remain with the copyright owner(s).
  26. Entrants grant the Organiser the non-exclusive right to use the material submitted for the Award for any purpose which the Organiser chooses, with no payment for use of that material.  The Organiser will provide due credit to the Entrant when such material is used.  The Entrant agrees that the Organiser will not be liable to the Entrant in the event of inadvertent omission of credit.

    Publicity

  27. Entrants agree that if their entry wins the Award, they will participate in related publicity and agree to the use of their name and likeness for the purposes of advertising, promotion and publicity of the Award without additional compensation.

    Liability

  28. The Organiser cannot be held responsible for entries that are not received and cannot accept liability for any loss of or damage to any material entered for the Award howsoever caused or for any other loss or damage as a result.

CONTACT US

The easiest way to contact us is by emailing us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Our People page, in the About Us section, contains email links to each of the committee members.