Meet the Team
Jack Mortimer
Co-Founder
Jack is a British wildlife and conservation photographer. He has extensive experience photographing in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon. In September of 2014 he graduated from Falmouth University studying BA (hons) Marine and Natural History Photography. Jack is now studying his Masters in Wildlife Filmmaking at UWE, partnered with the BBC Natural History Unit. He feels that small subjects such as invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians are a generally overlooked part of biodiversity, hence why he find's it interesting to explore them using the mediums of Macro Photography and film, raising species awareness and revealing details that are normally unseen to the naked eye.
Matt Gould
Co-Founder
Matt Gould is an award-winning wildlife photographer and content creator. After studying Wildlife Conservation and Countryside management, Matt’s passion for storytelling and local British wildlife led him to start his YouTube channel. He now uses his channel to tell stories of his adventures photographing wildlife.
Charlie Young
Communications Manager
Charlie is a Marine Scientist, adventurer and creative comms wizard. From leading expeditions to presenting documentaries on her research, Charlie is a magical mix of both nature knowledge and communications experience. Here to make our content go pop, Charlie can’t wait to find creative ways to inspire people about wildlife photography at home!
Deya Ward
Competition
Presenter
Deya Ward is a zoologist and natural history television researcher, specialising in orangutans. With a life long passion of primates, Deya has spend 6+ remote locations in Indonesian Borneo, where she worked alongside Dr Birute Galdikas, local scientists, village chiefs, and other organisations linked to wild orangutans and conservation of tropical rainforest habitats. As a scientist and through her role as the UK Correspondent of Orangutan Alliance, Deya is heavily involved in giving her own wildlife talks in schools across the UK. Deya is an ambassador for Ape Alliance, Women in STEM, Jane Goodall Institute UK and the Outdoor Swimming Society.
About the Idea
An idea literally born out of curiosity and wanting to be more productive. Over the last couple of weeks (late March) I've been working on a macro film in a studio in my living room and this got me thinking. The isolation and social distancing rules are very limiting in terms of how we interact with nature.
I was getting a lot out of my work and I thought it may be because I had an end goal (to make a film for my masters course) and then it hit me, what if others had something to work toward too, like a kick ass exclusive unofficial photography competition. A chance for people to be doing something creative with their time, something that interacts with wildlife, while raising awareness of the biodiversity of species that can be found in their homes and gardens.
And for those of you that don't have access to a garden, do not worry, try and find a spider or woodlouse around the house....house plants are also included.
So a week before we launched the competition, a few beers down on a Friday night I had a brainwave and here we are. I present to you the Isolation Wildlife Photography Awards 2020.
