The organisers of the Organ Vida International Photography Festival have issued a call for entries for their sixth annual photography contest. Photographers have until 25th May to submit their work to the competition, whose central theme is Reflections. The jury will include leading Dutch educator Corinne Noordenbos, award-winning Swedish photographer Kent Klich, Financial Times Weekend Magazine photo editor Emma Bowkett, prominent British photographer George Georgiou, professor Irina Rozovsky and award winning local photographer and filmmaker Ana Opalić, The finalists will see their work displayed at the final exhibition during the festival week. As always, we recommend that you read the terms and conditions before entering your work.

Ricoh has launched Spherical Report 360 (SR360), a fun and interactive competition which equips citizens with a free Ricoh Theta spherical camera and presents them with the unique opportunity to become a photojournalist by reporting on local news. The photo-submission contest will take place over the course of four months with a Most Valuable Photographer (MVP) being selected each month. The contest will end on 31st August, and images shared on the SR360 website will be judged by a panel of distinguished guests.  From the submitted images, one Grand Prize winner and two Gold Prize winners will be selected. Interested readers are encouraged to read the terms and conditions and register online through 10th April. Current Theta users are also invited to participate.

This spring, visitors to the National Trust at Lacock Abbey can enjoy a collection of winning images from the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) competition. Lacock Abbey is the birthplace of photography, as William Henry Fox Talbot invented and took the first photographic negative at this National Trust property, then his home. Keen photographers can improve their own skills with Philip Smith, founder and organiser of the competition, who will be visiting Lacock to hold a special photography workshop on 10th May. The workshop runs for a whole day and includes lunch (£75 per person, booking essential). The exhibition itself will be displayed in the Botanic Garden, from 5th April to 22nd May.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) will launch its annual RHS Photographer and Young Photographer of the Year Competition on 24th March. There are five categories including Plants, Abstracts and Details, Seasons, Celebrating Gardens and Wildlife.  Cash prizes will be awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in each category from an overall prize fund of £7550. This year the RHS has doubled the top prize to £2000, which will be awarded to one of the 5 adult category winners. Entries can be submitted until 2 November 2014.

The Societies today announced that Fujifilm is supporting the Photographer of the Year Award. Members of the Societies have the opportunity of winning a Fujifilm X-T1 compact system camera (pictured) and Fujinon XF56mm f/1.2 R lens by entering their monthly photography competitions, which run from January through to Novembers. The competition is judged the first week of each month, therefore entries need to be received by the final week of the preceding month. Phil Jones CEO of the Societies says “This is a great incentive for our members to enter our competition and stand the chance of walking away with this incredible piece of kit.” For more information on the competitions, head to the website below.

BBC Wildlife Magazine has announced that its 2014 Camera-trap Photo of the Year competition is now open for entries. This year’s awards fall into two areas: Camera-trap Research Project of the Year (with a prize of £3,000) and Camera-trap Photo of the Year. A maximum of 12 camera-trap images can be entered into one of the competition categories. The closing date for entries is 30 June 2014. The winners will be published in the December 2014 issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine and on the BBC Wildlife Magazine website and will receive a Lowepro Flipside Sport 15L camera pack, worth £122..As always, we recommend that you read the terms and conditions before entering your work.

The World Photography Organisation (WPO) has revealed the category winners in the Sony World Photography Awards Open and Youth competitions. The jury, chaired by Nigel Atherton, Group Editor, IPC Photo, UK, selected ten category winners for the Open competition, including Holger Schmidtke, Valerie Prudon, Kylli Sparre, Vlad Eftenie, Gert van den Bosch, Ivan Pedretti, Arup Ghosh, Alpay Erdem, Li Chen (for the photo, "Rain in an Ancient Town," above) and Hairul Azizi Harun. The category winners in the Youth competition include Paulina Metzscher, Turjoy Chowdhury and Borhan Mardani.

Update: Borhan Mardani has been disqualified - the new winner is Anastasia Zhetvina.

London based photographer Sean Batten has been announced as the winner of the UK National Award, part of the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards. Batten, a software developer and keen amateur photographer, was chosen as the winner for a stunning architectural shot of one of the hallways at Canary Wharf tube station. As the UK National Award winner, Batten receives the latest Sony digital camera equipment and will attend the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony in London on 30th April.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) will host this year's International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) exhibition from 1st April to 29th June. The exhibition will feature selections from the competition categories which focus on biodiversity and the wider environment, including The Beauty of Plants, Wildflower Landscapes, Wildlife in the Garden, Breathing Spaces and Trees, Wood and Forests. The RBGE is located at 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR.

The Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (SWPP) has announced the winners of the Under 5's Photography Competition. The winning photo, "It's My Party" (above) by Julie Moult from Leicestershire, was chosen from over 290 images entered. "[The photograph] was taken in my studio on a cream paper background with a single 24" softbox camera right," Julie says. The runner-up was Julie Fraser from Caithness.

International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) has launched a Monochrome Photo Project. The project has a wide brief – just about anything monochrome and relating to plants and gardens can be entered – including abstracts. There’s a £500 cash prize for the winner, plus the opportunity for their image to be featured in the IGPOTY book. The deadline for this contest is 31 March 2014.

Brindleyplace has launched a special photography competition that aims to celebrate the traditional Japanese festival of Hanami. An annual event, Hanami is the Japanese tradition of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers and is celebrated to coincide with the flowering of cherry blossom across the country. Organised in partnership with Ikon and Café Opus at Ikon, the Hanami Photography Competition is targeted at amateur photographers with a passion for photography in Birmingham and will be officially launched when the first cherry blossom flowers on the trees in Oozells Square in Brindleyplace. “Hanami seemed like the perfect festival for Brindleyplace to celebrate as, each year we have so many people comment on how beautiful the cherry blossom looks in Oozells Square," says Lydia Ellis, Marketing Manager at Brindleyplace. "By launching a photography competition we will be able to create a lasting memory as well as encouraging artistic talent in Birmingham." From when the competition is launched – the blossom typically blooms at the end of March –participants will have until 13th April to submit their entry.

Launching at Crufts, the Kennel Club is urging budding and experienced photographers to submit their canine images to the annual Dog Photographer of the Year competition.  Heidi Hudson, Kennel Club Picture Librarian, said: “The Dog Photographer of the Year competition is the biggest canine photography competition in the world and we are looking for stunning images that capture a wonderful moment and that reflect our contemporary experience of living with dogs." The competition, which is exclusively presented by Samsung, is now open and free to enter.  The overall winner will receive a Samsung Galaxy NX camera and will have VIP access to photograph the Crufts Best in Show winner in 2015. The submission deadline is 5p.m. (UK time) on 10 November 2014.

The Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers (SINWP) have announced the winners of their Spectacular Landscapes Photography Competition. Adrian Rohnfelder from Bad Homburg, Germany’s image (above) was chosen from over 370 images entered.  2nd place was Hamish Burson from New Zealand and joint 3rd places were Lisa Katharina Schaefer from New Zealand and Tomasz Janicki from Worcestershire.

The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation (KKF) today revealed the shortlisted entries for its annual photo book awards. Established in 1985, the KKF Book Awards are the UK’s leading prizes for books published in the fields of photography and the moving image and the two winners share a £10,000 prize. The winners will be announced on 30 April at the Sony World Photography Awards gala ceremony held in London. Along with 14 highly commended titles across the two categories, the shortlisted books will be displayed at Somerset House, London from 1-18 May as part of the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition.

The Photographic Museum of Humanity (PMH) has announced an extension to its PMH 2014 Grant, which is now officially set on 12 March 2014. The PMH 2014 Grantan international photography contest offering $4000 in cash prizes. The jury features Alec Soth (Magnum Photos), Iata Cannabrave (Brzilian curator, creator of the Latin American Photography Forum of Sao Paulo), Olivier Laurent (Associate Editor for the British Journal of Photography) and Diana Markosian (PMH 2013 Grant New Generation Prize winner). To participate, you have to submit a series of maximum 15 photos. The contest has no entry fee.

The Royal Observatory Greenwich, in association with Sky at Night Magazine, have launched their 2014 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. Now in its sixth year, the competition attracted a record-breaking number of entries last year, with spectacular images submitted from around the world. Mark Gee won with his extraordinary image depicting a star-riddled Milky Way alongside the beam from a lighthouse on Cape Palliser in New Zealand (above). Entries to this year's competition must be submitted by 24 April 2014, and the winning images will be showcased in the annual free exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich from 18 September 2014 to February 2015.

The North American Circus Competition has announced its "World of Circus" photo contest. "We are searching for the best images from any era that unequivocallyconvey the deepest meaning of circus," the organisers say. This contest will have one grand prize winner and several other finalists who will receive prizes including $1000 in cash, an Emotiv Insight EEG headband controller (one of only 8000 being produced this year), a Wacom Intuos Pro, and several Wacom Bamboo Stylus pens. The "World of Circus" photo contest opens on 3rd March. Other categories in the North American Circus Competition include "Life is a Cabaret," Circus on Fire" and "Surreal Places".

Unified Color has announced the call for entries for its latest HDR imaging contest. To enter, participants are asked to choose their favourite HDR image(s) and resize them to 72ppi in .jpg or .bef format and email the entries to Unified Color at [email protected]. Submissions are accepted through 31st March. The body of your entry email must include your name, current email address and the following statement: “I have read and accept the contest rules pertaining to Unified Color’s 2014 HDR Photo Contest.” All entries must have been edited in HDR Expose 3, HDR Express 3 or 32 Float v3 at some point in its creation. The winners will be announced on or around 11 April 2014. The grand prize winner will receive a $500 gift card to B&H Photo, and the two recipients of Honourable Mentions will each receive a $100 gift card to B&H Photo. As always we suggest that you read the rules before entering your work.

BeatTheBrochure has announced its very first photo competition, A Colourful World. Offering a range of prizes from a digital camera, discounts on BeatTheBrochure holidays, as well as vouchers for Ticketmaster and Love2Shop, the photo contest allows entrants to share their favourite, and most colourful, holiday photos.  All entries will be showcased across the BeatTheBrochure site and its platforms, Google+, Facebook and Twitter. The deadline for submissions is 15 March 2014.