The Tom Oliver Award was a special BirdLife Photography Award established in 2014, in honour of a dedicated BirdLife Photography member, Tom Oliver, whose passion for bird photography and in-depth knowledge of the technical aspects of this photographic genre were enthusiastically shared with anyone who sought his company. Sadly, Tom is no longer with us, but his zeal for educating others lives on through the Tom Oliver Award. This award was made possible by a generous bequest to BirdLife Photography from Tom’s wife, Di Oliver. BirdLife Photography extends its gratitude to Di Oliver for her generosity.
The Tom Oliver Award was offered bi-annually, from 2015 until 2024. It sought to entice photographers and/or photography-educators to create an original and inspiring educational resource enabling bird photographers to advance their photographic knowledge-base and technical competencies. The definition was deliberately broad to encourage lateral thinking and innovation by award entrants. These resources should promote best practice in photographic techniques and could include aspects such as:
- photographing small birds
- photographing birds in flight
- capturing interesting behaviours
- compositional elements
- post-production techniques and workflows
- ethics in bird photography
From 2025, BirdLife Photography will remember and honour Tom Oliver by renaming our most prestigious annual award as the Tom Oliver Member of the Year Award.