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📷 Whitlingham winners

Writer: Kate
Kate
35 minutes ago
4 min read

We have our winners! 🎉


Who won our 2026 photography competition?

Overall winner: Claudia Thomas - 'The Lake Through the Leaves'

Claudia wins a whole year's free unlimited parking at Whitlingham Country Park, and a copy of the beautiful calendar on which her image is the cover star.


Whitlingham Great Broad with glowing sun coming through the clouds in a blue sky. The sun and cloud are reflected on the water and there is a frame of leaves around the scene.

Isn't it an absolute stunner! We were all blown away by this beautiful composition. The light, the clouds, the reflections, and the frame of foliage all make it the standout image. Thanks to Chairman of Whitlingham Charitable Trust, Nigel Savory, who made the overall winning choice for us from the top 12.


It was certainly really tough to narrow down the beautiful entries to just 12 from the 299 that came in. Park manager Graeme and I narrowed down our favourites to a top 42, the remaining 30 of which I'll share with you below in our 'Highly Commended' gallery. If you spot one or more of your images in there, well done! We were really impressed with your images too. If only there were more than 12 months in a year...


Which other photos were chosen for the calendar?

The other 11 lucky winners will receive a free copy of the calendar to enjoy (once it has gone to print) with their beautiful image inside. Hopefully the calendar will be available from November, but we'll keep everyone updated with news of its production.


The remaining eleven winning images in no particular order: Can you guess which month they will each represent? Claudia's winning image will also be inside the calendar to represent a month... but which one will it be?


Steph Sykes - 'Bee Enjoying Whitlingham's Flowers'


In focus in the foreground is a bumble bee on a pink flower. The background is blurred but features reeds, more pink flowers, the Great Broad lake and also trees in the distance.

Adrian Farcas - 'Woodland Magic by the Stairs'


Light brown fungi on the base of a tree in the foreground with steep banked land behind and a wooden staircase leading up from bottom right to top left diagonally. There are lots of brown autumn leaves on the ground.

Guy Humphrey - 'Robin in the Rain'


A robin looking slightly upwards in the centre of the image. It is sitting on a diagonally cut wooden post and there is a blurred background of pale green with light raindrops all around.

Lucy Jackson - 'Oak in Sillhouette'


A large oak tree in shadow on the right of the image with four large branches reaching to the left. In the background is a meadow and wooden slatted fence. In the foreground is bright green foliage with the sun shining onto it, creating long shadows.

Preston Thomas - 'The Path Less Travelled'


A path runs centrally with tall bare trees either side. The tree trunks are dark brown and the right side of them is covered with snow as is the ground and all the branches.

Chris Palmer - 'Hidden Gaze' (featuring beautiful Egyptian geese)


Blurred blue background with brown feathered birds laying at the bottom in the foreground, close up. There is one Egyptian goose's head peeping up with a bright orange eye seemingly looking directly at the camera.

Dave Montgomery - 'Morning has Broken over the Great Broad'


a bright blue sky with little fluffy clouds, gradually turning yellow towards the horizon where the sun is rising. There is black silhouetted tree leaning in from the right over the Great Broad water. There is mist over the water and trees in the background on the other side of the water.

David Burns - 'Blackcap Male'


A little grey bird sitting on a thin branch. It has black feathers on top of its head and it has its tail feathers fanned out below the branch. The bird is looking to the left of the image. The plain blue sky is behind.

Max A - Please get in touch with us, Max! We want to celebrate you and you can name your image.


A green meadow with loads of white daisy flowers on long green stems above the grass. The flowers' centres are bright yellow. There are dark green mature trees in the background.

Cohen Garwood - 'Snow Fall' (featuring a black headed gull)


A medium sized white bird - black headed gull- with grey wing feathers and black tail feathers. It has a yellow beak and black eyes and it is looking to the top left of the image. Snow is falling and it stands on snowy ground.

Chris Lloyd - 'Highland Gold' (featuring one of our five Highland cattle that are currently on Trowse Water Meadow but will roam the Great Broad's meadows in due course)


A mid-brown highland cow with two large curved horns pointing upwards on each side of its head. It is chewing a piece of vegetation from the meadow it stands in, The grasses are green and brown. The cow's hair is long and shaggy and it has a light pink nose and mouth.

We wanted the calendar to not only have a beautiful image for you to enjoy for every month of the year, but we also wanted to ensure the seasons were represented as well as a range of locations in the park and a range of wildlife subjects.


Highly Commended gallery

There is SO much talent out there. Check out these 30 entries which narrowly missed being on our calendar but impressed us or caught our eye for various reasons. Scroll through with the arrow to see them all and hover on each to see who took the picture:


  • David Burns
  • Adrian Farcas
  • Chris Palmer
  • Adrian Farcas
  • Barry Madden
  • Carol Horsman
  • Andrew Stokes
  • Chris Lloyd
  • Nigel Marchant
  • Claudia Thomas
  • Adrian Farcas
  • Nigel Marchant
  • Rob White
  • Claudia Thomas
  • Adrian Farcas
  • Chris Palmer
  • Dave Montgomery
  • Barry Madden
  • Daniel Salliss
  • Katarzyna Zakrewska
  • Mike Ng
  • Simon Eastmead
  • Guy Humphrey
  • Nigel Marchant
  • Barry Madden
  • Rob White
  • Harrison Drift
  • Simon Eastmead
  • Sarah Nice
  • Thomas Clegg

Special mentions must go to these extremely talented entrants: Barry Madden and Nigel Marchant for each having 3 images on our Highly Commended list. Adrian Farcas made it onto the calendar but also had 4 Highly Commended images. What an amazing achievement!


What's next?

We hope you'll enjoy the range of seasonal compositions we have chosen. The finished calendar will be available to purchase from the Visitor Welcome Centre in due course. Please keep an eye on the 'News' page as well as on our Facebook page for updates on that.


Our winners are largely, if not all, local amateur photographers or simply park visitors with a phone. If this has inspired you to do some photography, the park has endless opportunities and you can always use a smartphone camera. No need for big fancy cameras if you don't have access to one of those.


Start taking images now ready to enter for the 2027 competition!


Images taken from 30th September 2026 onwards will be eligible for next year's competition. The same general rules will apply:


  • landscape orientation only

  • images must be taken at Whitlingham Country Park (which includes Trowse Woods and Trowse Water Meadow too)

  • images must not be tampered with using AI, but can be lightly enhanced with ordinary software if desired. We believe nature is beautiful enough as it is!

  • Full T&Cs will be available when we launch the next run of this competition from January 1st 2027.


We may come up with a theme for you to follow, but taking gorgeous photos in advance is not a bad move.


Top tip: Make sure your image is interesting enough to be looked at for a whole month on someone's wall calendar, as we certainly considered that when judging. We were also keen that the images represented the park as a whole including woodlands, meadows and a range of nature and wildlife subjects as well as seasons. We had multiple entries in from lots of photographers, so the more the send in, the better chance you have of one being chosen!


We can't wait to see what amazing images we see next year too. Get snapping! 😎




 
 
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