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NANPA Foundation sponsors Special Prize for photo taken in national park or wildlife refuge

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Photo collage courtesy of Share the View International Nature Photography Contest

NANPA Foundation is proud to sponsor a Special Award for a photograph taken within the borders of a national park or wildlife refuge worldwide in the Share the View International Nature Photography Contest. The sponsorship is a natural extension of NANPA Foundation’s photo blinds program, an effort to encourage responsible nature photography on public lands.

The Special Award in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges includes a $250 prize and recognition opportunities. It’s one of seven Special Awards in the 2021 Share the View contest. A $1,000 Grand Prize is also up for grabs in the competition, an annual contest that helps raise funds for conservation organizations. The 2021 Share the View contest benefits African People & Wildlife, Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, and LightHawk. Photo submissions are due December 1 at the Share the View website.

GET INFO: SHARE THE VIEW

NANPA Foundation Photo Blinds Program

NANPA Foundation has been helping to connect nature photographers to national parks and wildlife refuges for 25 years, helping site, fund, and construct 47 nature photography blinds in 29 states—and still counting. The Foundation offers grants on a rolling basis year-round. Learn more about the program in this short video:

The photo blind program started in 1997 as a collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service but has expanded to a wide variety of natural areas, including wildlife reserves and state/city parks—from coast to coast throughout the United States. Download a map of the existing photo blind locations >

Janie Moore Greene Scholarship Grant supports Pitzer College student

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Images © Beihua Guo

The North American Nature Photography Association Foundation (NANPA Foundation) named Beihua Guo of Agoura Hills, CA, recipient of the 2020 Janie Moore Greene Scholarship Grant. The $2,000 award supports Guo’s continued studies at Pitzer College.

Guo moved to the United States in 2013 and was immediately drawn to the national park system. “Growing up in Shanghai, China, a densely populated urban environment, I never experienced serene nature in my childhood,” he explained.

But as a teenager discovering America’s public lands, Guo was inspired by artists including Thomas Moran and Ansel Adams, as well as John Muir’s efforts in promoting preservation. “My love of the outdoors and landscape photography started to emerge,” he said.

Guo was awarded artist residencies in Lassen Volcanic National Park (CA), Petrified Forest National Park (AZ), and Yellowstone National Park. His studies at Pitzer College in California have included studio art and environmental analysis, but Guo also feels a responsibility to use his nature photographs to address social and environmental issues.

“One of my main interests is water issues in the American West. My Salton Sea series explores the escalating environmental disasters triggered by human activities in the Salton Sea,” said Guo. Located in Southern California, the Salton Sea was accidentally created in 1905 when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal, flooding the Salton Basin. The manmade lake was once a popular tourist destination, but agricultural runoff and other pollutants resulted in fish and bird die-offs as well as rapidly increasing salinity, threatening the entire ecosystem. “I want to use my photographs and installations to emphasize the process of extraction and excavation, as well as how human activities shape the natural and built environments.”

About the Janie Moore Greene Scholarship Grant

The Janie Moore Greene Scholarship is a $2,000 award presented biennially by the NANPA Foundation to a student specializing in the study of photography at an institution of higher education. The next grant cycle is expected to begin in fall 2022.

Do You See the Big Picture?

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Nature photography community is incomplete without the NANPA Foundation

We’ve raised 84% of our $25,000 fundraising goal in honor of the NANPA Foundation’s 25 years, so 84% of the big image above is visible. The image—created by professional travel and wildlife photographer Cindy Miller Hopkins—will be revealed throughout the year as we get closer to our fundraising goal. MAKE A GIFT >

If you only know NANPA, and not the NANPA Foundation, then you’re only seeing part of the picture.

A few years after the storied meeting at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute established NANPA as a membership-based association, the NANPA Foundation was formed as a separate but complementary nonprofit organization. Structured differently, the Foundation can accept tax-deductible charitable donations and shares NANPA’s commitment to nature photography education, environmental protection, and responsible photography in the wild. Together, NANPA and the NANPA Foundation offer a more complete array of possibilities for the nature photography community.

25 Years and Growing

The NANPA Foundation turns 25 this year, but that’s not its most impressive number. In that time the Foundation has supported 21 conservation projects affecting communities throughout North America—from New Hampshire to San Francisco, San Pedro Mezquital to British Columbia and Alaska—and even to northeast Africa. It has awarded $20,000 in grants for undergraduate and graduate study in photography, provided immersive hands-on learning experiences and mentoring to 135 high school and 121 college students, and erected 47 photo blinds on public lands throughout the U.S., including 37 at National Wildlife Refuges. These achievements are made possible by charitable contributions from individuals like you.

In honor of the NANPA Foundation’s 25th birthday, we’re asking NANPA members to make a donation of $25 or more to support ongoing initiatives like these and more.

MAKE A GIFT

The Complete Picture

As funds are received, the image above—created by Cindy Miller Hopkins, professional travel and wildlife photographer who serves on the NANPA Foundation’s Board of Trustees—will be revealed. When we hit our $25,000 goal, you’ll be able to see the complete picture.