Feline charity International Cat Care (iCatCare) has once again started its search for the world’s best cat photographers, with the 2019 launch of its annual photography competition.
This year, in collaboration with Britain’s best-selling cat magazine Your Cat Magazine, the charity is looking to celebrate and showcase the complex and fascinating cat-human bond and the many different forms it can take with a brand-new theme of ‘Cat-Human Relationships’.
Amateur and professional photographers from across the globe are invited to enter photographs of cats and humans together. The judges want to see a range of relationships covering an assortment of situations, locations and ages. For instance, entries can include but are not limited to: pet cats with their owners in the home, street cats with the public and cats with those who work with them eg, veterinary professionals with their patients and homing centre workers with the cats in their care.
Since its launch in 2013, the competition has collectively attracted over 15,000 entries from all over the world. Eve Davies, who runs the competition, said: ‘Whilst we tend to think of our relationship with cats as that of pet and owner, cats and humans can have a huge variety of unique connections with each other and we would love to see this reflected in the entries.
‘This year’s theme is quite different from previous topics – for example, kittens or sleeping cats – but it has the potential to be much more rewarding. As well as receiving exceptional photos over the years, we have been sent some incredibly moving stories to accompany them and we are hoping that this year will be even better still.’
Twelve winning images will be selected by the iCatCare and Your Cat Magazine judges to feature in the charity’s 2020 calendar (and other materials) which will be sold to raise funds for the charity’s work, with one of these being crowned the overall winner and gracing the front cover. All twelve winners will each receive a certificate, copies of the calendar and a selection of iCatCare merchandise. The overall winner will also receive £500 in prize money.
Emily Wardle, Editor for Your Cat Magazine, said: ‘We are delighted to be teaming up with iCatCare to launch this photography competition with a topic close to our heart. As our readers know, there’s nothing more special than the bond between cat and human — and this can take many forms. We can’t wait to see the entries and publish the winning images in the magazine to share them with our readers.’
To find out more and to enter, visit: icatcare.org/photography-competition. The competition is now open for entries and will run until 10 am (BST) on 1 July 2019. Winners will be announced on iCatCare and Your Cat Magazine’s social media accounts shortly after.
