'Fairytale' snap sees photographer, 14, win contest

The arresting image - entitled Peekaboo - has won Essex Wildlife Trust's Photography Competition 2024

A teenage photographer says she hopes "to inspire others" after her arresting image of woodland deer scooped a wildlife competition.

Leah Bloom's photograph, entitled Peekaboo, captured two fallow deer in the "fairytale" setting near Copped Hall in Epping Forest.

The 14-year-old has been named the overall winner of Essex Wildlife Trust's Photography Competition 2024, fending off nearly a thousand other entrants.

"I started wildlife photography less than two years ago, and doing so has brought me so much closer to all the wonderful wildlife in Essex," she said.

She added: "All my life I have loved wildlife and nature, spending much of my free time walking in Epping Forest – which is helpfully on our doorstep."

Andrew Jacobs' Playing The Clarinet claimed the top prize in the Coastal Captures category

Leah's photograph was submitted to the Young Blood category and has become he very first from the under-16s group to win the contest, which has been running since 2017.

The annual competition, which celebrates the wild places and wildlife that can be found throughout the county, runs from September to the end of November.

Photographs need to have been taken in Essex within the last year to be considered, before a panel of judges choose the winners in six different categories in December.

Members of the public are then asked to crown the overall winner of the competition through an online voting system – and Leah's entry was successful.

Rabbit Love, by Vai Meng Chan, was named the best snap in the A Wilder Essex category

"I love being able to showcase the characteristics, behaviours, and unique personalities of all the animals I photograph," Leah said.

"With my photography, I hope to inspire others to go out into nature and care about the animals and insects we are lucky to share our planet with, as well as their habitats, too."

Leah's prize-winning photograph is currently being displayed alongside the five other category winners at High Chelmer Shopping Centre, in Chelmsford.