The Pollinator Project has announced the first winner of the Barry Wells Award for Young Photographers.
Ajax Amy’s capture of a bee in flight was unanimously voted the Pollinator Project team as the winner of this new category in the Guernsey Arts Bailiwick Wildlife Photography Exhibition.
“Judging is always a tough job, but we all agreed that this image perfectly captured a moment in time and showed the close relationship between pollinators and flowers,” said Sharon Hickman from the Pollinator Project.
“Catching any flying creature is a real skill and Ajax did a great job.”
Jayne Wells who presented the award said Barry would have loved to see all the entries and share his boundless enthusiasm for photography and protecting Guernsey’s nature. She explained: “He was an inspiration to so many people and its lovely to see that the donations made in his memory have gone to help young photographers. Anyone that knew him will know that he amassed all sorts of cameras and lenses but often it was a snap on a smartphone that worked just as well”.
Ajax is a student at Elizabeth College and captured his amazing photo with a smartphone while completing a school project near the Pollinator Patch in Candie Gardens. He didn’t tell his family he had entered the competition until the day before when his invite to the awards ceremony arrived.
Sharon Hickman from the Pollinator Project who was part of the judging panel for the award said: “It was really good to see so many different insects represented as its not only bees, but butterflies, moths, beetles and even wasps and flies that are important pollinators in Guernsey. We also had good fun identifying just what sort of bee it is as we don’t often see them from that angle.
“Our experts decided it was a common carder bee, one of Guernsey’s 6 species of bumblebees. You can see her antennae, compound eyes and tongue really
well,” said Sharon.
