Hummingbird Festival Photo Contest

Photographers – this is your chance to share your hummingbird images with an appreciative audience!

We are looking for portrayals of hummingbirds in their natural environment that capture their behaviors, habitats, or relationships with each other or other species. More than 1000 people will view and enjoy your photos at the Festival. Several hundred participate in the “People’s Choice” voting for their favorite photo.

If you don’t have a photo to enter in the contest, please visit the display and enjoy all the wonderful prints there and vote for your favorite!

Winning photographs will be displayed on the International Hummingbird Society’s website for one year. In addition to your printed photograph, please plan to supply a digital copy of your photo—instructions below.

Judging and Awards

Each person who submits photos will receive a participation gift. Winning photos will receive a rosette ribbon and will be featured on our website for one year. Judge’s Grand Prize and People’s Choice Award winners each receive 2 VIP tickets to the next year’s Sedona Hummingbird Festival (includes all presentations, garden tours, and hummingbird banding).

Awards will be given in these categories:

PEOPLE’S CHOICE: festival attendees may vote for their favorite during the festival between Friday at 1 pm and Sunday at noon. People’s Choice winner will be announced Sunday at 2:30pm.
2025 Winner: Ilenia Alvarez, “Mom in Heaven” White-bellied Woodstar

JUDGES’ AWARDS: determined by a panel of professional and expert bird photographers. 2025 winners are listed below:

• Judges’ Choice — Grand Prize (the Grand Prize photo cannot win in any other category)
2025 Winner: Samuel Sheats, “Emergence” Anna’s Hummingbird

• Best image of a hummingbird taken in the U.S.
2025 Winner: Barbara Van Matre, “Purple Power” Black-chinned Hummingbird

• Best image of a hummingbird taken in an international location
2025 Winner: Ilenia Alvarez, “Eze’s Magic Moment” Violet-headed Hummingbird

• Best image taken by a beginning photographer
2025 Winner: Anand Paranjpe, “Elegance” Anna’s Hummingbird

• Best image taken by an intermediate/advanced photographer
2025 Winner: Samuel Sheats, “Flyby” Anna’s Hummingbird

• Best image of a perched hummingbird
2025 Winner: Dicle Sensoy, “Corner Break” Anna’s Hummingbirds

• Best image of a hummingbird in flight
2025 Winner: Darby Tatsak, “Who’s Zooming Who?” Rufous Hummingbird

• New category for 2026: Best group photo (more than 1 hummingbird)

Judges’ Awards will be announced at the Saturday evening Festival Dinner and will be on display on Sunday. People’s Choice Award will be announced at the Festival at 2:30 pm on Sunday.

Entry is Easy!

• Maximum 3 photo prints per person
• Do not mat or frame your photos. Photos will be attached to a display system using a non-destructive method (but we cannot guarantee photos will not be damaged).

Four steps to enter:

1. Download the entry form here. Complete the form and attach it to the back of each photo you are submitting.
2. Click on Get Tickets to go the Festival registration form [Note: online registration is now closed. Skip this step, complete steps 3 and 4, and follow the instructions in the note below.] This is the same page where you buy tickets for all festival activities. Pay the $5 entry fee for each photo. You will receive a registration confirmation by email.
3. In addition to printing your photos, please email a medium-sized (1200 pixels across) digital copy of each of the photos you are entering, along with your name, registration confirmation number, and the name of the hummingbird species to: Festival@hummingbirdsociety.org. Put the words PHOTO CONTEST in the subject header.
4. Bring your printed photos (with the entry form attached to the back of each photo) and a copy of your registration confirmation to the Photo Contest Registration Desk on Thursday July 23 between 1-5pm or Friday July 24 between 8-10am. We cannot accept photo prints after 10am on Friday July 24.

Note: If you do not enter your photos in advance during online registration, NO WORRIES. You may pay at the Festival when you drop off your prints. Pay by cash or check at the Photo Contest Registration Desk (next to the photo contest display); or if paying by credit card, pay at the main Festival Registration desk and bring your receipt and photos with entry forms attached to the Photo Contest Registration Desk.

Can’t attend the Festival? You can enter by mail. Use the online Festival registration form to pay your entry fee or include a check with your photos. Mail your check or registration confirmation and your photos with entry form attached to:

International Hummingbird Society
P.O. Box 4222
Sedona, AZ 86340

Note: Mailed entries must arrive no later than Friday July 17th 2026.

Print Size Requirements

Maximum 10”, minimum 6” on the longest side. 10” is the preferred size because it is easy to view.

Image Requirements

Images shall be created by the photographer using in-camera techniques.

Normal processing of the original file is acceptable. That includes:

• Cropping
• Minor adjustments to color, white balance, tone, lighting levels and curves, shadows and highlights, saturation, contrast, sharpness
• Moderate dodging and burning
• Removal of dust spots and moderate reduction of image noise
• Adding a vignette
• Moderate background blurring

Disallowed Photographs

Photographs that have been digitally or otherwise altered beyond standard optimization will be disqualified.

That includes:

• AI-generated images
• Composite images such as sky replacement or combining elements from multiple photographs
• Images of the same subject that are combined in-camera or with software by focus stacking or exposure blending
• Images that have been manipulated by the addition, removal, or alteration (painting over, cloning, or blurring) of anything in the original subject and scene
• Signatures, watermarks or other identifying marks such as the photographer’s name.
• Changes in color so significant that the processed colors are widely different from the original colors

Pick Up and Permissions

Photographers can pick up their prints at the end of the festival, but IHS is not responsible for returning them or for any loss or damage to them. Photos not picked up will become the property of IHS; the copyright remains with the photographer.

Photographers give permission to the International Hummingbird Society to use the images on its website and in social media to promote the International Hummingbird Society/Sedona Hummingbird Festival, with credit to the photographer.