Nottingham student scoops photography award

Alex Wilkinson’s awesome photo won the My Coast Photography competition


A Nottingham masters student’s photo was voted as the best in a national photography competition.

Alex Wilkinson, 22, saw his photo receive over 1.4 thousand Facebook likes on its way to winning the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) award.

The winning photo!  © Alex Wilkinson www.wilkinson-photography.co.uk

Alex first started doing photography in his second year  “whilst doing an undergrad in Environmental Science where we allowed to do some modules in Biological Photography and Imaging, followed by a similar module in third year.”

“I did photography through uni and was very much an amateur and was constantly learning (I still am) until towards the end of third year,” he said. “I then started taking it more seriously and decided to do a MSc in Biological Photography and Imaging.”

‘One In A Million’ © Alex Wilkinson www.wilkinson-photography.co.uk

Alex is going to Uganda this weekend to do his Summer Project working with chimps. He said: “Uganda is my ‘dissertation’, so I will be photographing chimps for 3 months and working with an organisation out there which was established by the Jane Goodall foundation, the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation trust (CSWCT).

“I will be documenting chimps and the human interactions with these animals and creating a book about all of this.”

Despite the accolade, Alex isn’t sure it’s his best photo. “It is one of my favourites but I don’t think I can say it’s the definitive best,” he said.

“I have taken lots of photos of many different things – wildlife, captive and wild, to portraits of elite athletes – all of which I love, but this image has gained a huge positive response from people all over the country so it is definitely up there!”

‘Climbing Frog’ © Alex Wilkinson www.wilkinson-photography.co.uk

“Doing photography professionally is something I haven’t quite decided on yet and will probably decide after Uganda, however I do love photography and being outdoors so if I don’t become just freelance then I will definitely get a job doing media based stuff in the outdoors or in science.”

Like Alex’s Facebook page here and you can find his personal website here.

The winning photo is now going up on the RNLI page to buy as a print, with donations going to the RNLI.