About the competition
The photo contest of the Russian Geographical Society was first held in 2015. It immediately set out to become the largest Russian wildlife photography contest. In the first year, 25 thousand participants sent about 200 thousand pictures. And in six years, the number of photos sent has increased to 570 thousand.
Any person can become a participant of the competition, regardless of place of residence, citizenship and age.
The only condition is that the photographs must be taken in Russia.
Marco Urso
Italian wildlife photographer and travel photojournalist. Worked with National Geographic, Nature Images, Nature Best, Outdoor Photographer, Asferico, Nature, Oasis, Go Nordic.
I envy the contest participants. Russian nature has given them an incredible variety of stories and subjects. One special skill is to convey emotions and culture pattern through the photographs. If the author succeeds, then his work goes beyond the boundaries of everyday life and turns into art.
Categories and special prizes
Categories
1 Landscape
2 Wild animals
3 Birds
4 Elemental magic
5 Russia from a bird's eye view
6 Faces of Russia
7 Live archive
8 Art of wildlife (fine-art photography)
9 Macroworld
10 Underwater world
The main prize in each of the categories is
250,000
rubles
Special prizes
1 People’s choice award
2 Reserved Russia
Each winner of the special prize receives
100,000
rubles
How we evaluate works
We tried to make the assessment of the participants' works as simple and transparent as possible
- At the first stage, the photographs are evaluated by the members of the Expert Commission – these are 14 professional, reputable photographers and photo editors.
Sergey Poletaev
Aerial and architectural photographer. Winner of international photo awards and competitions: Sienna Awards-2020, 35 awards ("Air photographer-2019"), Agora Awards and others.
Ekaterina Vasyagina
Wildlife photographer and organizer of photo tours in Russia. Member of the Union of Wildlife Photographers, the Union of Photographers of Russia. Winner and finalist of the photo contests "The Most Beautiful Country", "Golden Turtle", "Wild Nature of Russia" and others. Co-founder of the PhotoJourneys.ru project.
Alexey Volkov
Wildlife photographer. Since 2008, he has been a member of the Macroclub, an international non-profit community of photographers and fans of macro photography. Laureate of numerous festivals and exhibitions, including "Golden Turtle", Moscow State University Science Festival, "Wild Nature of Russia", "Pristine Russia", Nature Images Awards. Member of the Union of Wildlife Photographers.
The full list of the Expert Commission
- Each work is evaluated by at least three experts on a 5-point scale.
- Works with an average score of 4+ go to the semifinals.
- 10 finalists in each category are selected from among the semifinalists at the in-person meeting of the Expert Commission.
- The experts do not know the authors of the works. This ensures an impartial assessment.
This is what the in-person meeting of the Expert Commission of the competition looks like.
Photo album "The Most Beautiful Country"
All works of the finalists are published in a colorful photo album. A finalist receives the album for free. Any participant in the competition can buy it
at the online store of the Russian Geographical Society.
In addition, photographs of the finalists and winners are exhibited in Russia and around the world.They will also be presented at an online exhibition with elements of augmented reality, which will soon appear on the website
rgo.ru. With the help of a special application, you can "bring to life" the best photographs of the "The Most Beautiful Country". The wait is almost over…