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National Estuaries Week Photo Contest 2025

NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management is hosting a photo contest to celebrate National Estuaries Week from September 20 to 27, 2025. Send us your best photos from the National Estuarine Research Reserves that display the beauty of the reserves, critters that live there, and the people who work and play there. We want to see them all!

Winners will be chosen by a panel of judges and will be featured in our social media campaign during National Estuaries Week. Submit your photos under the following categories:

  • Learn

  • Play

  • Vistas

  • Smiles

  • Work

To enter:

Submit your images (minimum of 1200 pixels wide, no more than 10 photos) to us at OCM.NERRS.PhotoContest@noaa.gov. All images MUST include the following information: photographer's name, short description of when and where the photo was taken, and what is shown in the photo.

Deadline:

Photos must be submitted by Sunday, August 31, 2025, to be eligible for the contest.

Additional Contest Rules

  1. Photographers must be at least 13 years of age or older as of August 1, 2025.

  2. Submitters own the photo and have the right to publish it.

  3. The photographer must submit this Likeness and Photo Release Form. Anyone identifiable in the photo(s) must also use this link to submit their own forms.

  4. By submitting a photo, you grant permission to the Office for Coastal Management to use the photo for any and all other purposes, such as within NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management photo gallery and on any websites hosted by NOAA, as well as for social media, publications, and use by immediate contest partners. The Office for Coastal Management will, of course, provide credit to photographers when any photos are used.

  5. Photos submitted without information about the photographer and a brief caption will not be considered.

  6. Photographers are eligible to submit photos if less than 20 percent of their gross annual income is from photography services or products.

  7. No watermarks on submitted photos.

  8. Photos must be a minimum of 1200 pixels wide (but the bigger, the better!)

  9. Only 10 entries per person.

  10. Please keep the content clean and appropriate. Content deemed inappropriate by the Office for Coastal Management will not be accepted.

  11. Photos must be from within a National Estuarine Research Reserve. There are 30 sites across the reserve system.

Email us with questions at OCM.NERRS.PhotoContest@noaa.gov.