The votes are in, and we are excited to share our top 3 photos from the 2022 Our Common Agenda photo contest!
Thank you to the 63 photographers who submitted 500+ of their best Virginia conservation photographs to be featured within our annual policy briefing book, and potentially featured as the cover photo.
The conservation community cast their votes in early July for their three favorite photos to be used as the Our Common Agenda cover photo. Once the votes were cast, VCN staff voted on their favorite of the top three selections. Check out the winners below!
Lori A Cash – Hampton, Virginia
Lori A Cash is an award-winning wildlife and nature conservation photographer who has over thirty years’ experience photographing wildlife and nature. Lori has always had a love for the natural world which has brought her into the realm of conservation photography and visual storytelling. She hopes that her images will inspire others to appreciate our natural world. Lori resides in Hampton, Virginia and primarily photographs in the Hampton Roads area. Her conservation efforts expand throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. Through her conservation storytelling and photography, Lori strives to inspire and educate others about the beauty of the natural world and to advocate for the protection of our environment and wildlife.
Lori is a member of the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). She is the founder and administrator of the Hampton Roads Nature Photography Facebook group.
Lori’s conservation photography and storytelling can be found at her website at loriacash.com. Lori regularly posts and shares her images on social media. Check her out on Instagram (@lacashphoto), Twitter (@LoriACash), Facebook (@LoriACashConservationPhotography) and on LinkedIn (Lori A Cash).
Daniel Jones – Hopewell, Virginia
Daniel is a freelance photographer from Hopewell, Virginia. He spends a lot of time photographing local tourism assets, such as the Hopewell Riverwalk, drawing attention to the natural beauty of the region and the quality of life improvements the community has made over the past few years. Through his work, Daniel hopes to attract new visitors to the area and encourage good stewardship of the wetlands and woodlands in the Tri-Cities area (Hopewell, Petersburg, Colonial Heights).
His work has been used by Virginia Tourism Corporation, Virginia’s Gateway Region, FOLAR (Friends of the Lower Appomattox River), The City of Hopewell, and Prince George County. He is also the president of the Cockade City Camera Club in Petersburg, Virginia.
Daniel’s photography can be found on his website at danieljonesfoto.com and on his Instagram page (@danieljonesfoto).
Tori Kennedy – Haymarket, Virginia
Tori is an amateur photographer, and started photography as a hobby when she received her first Canon film camera from her parents for Christmas when she was 15. She grew up on an old farmstead in the Shenandoah Valley and had the opportunity to practice her photography skills on the surrounding wildlife, farmscapes, and farm animals. As a teenager, she won a few photography competitions at the Augusta County fair and belonged to the photography club at Stuart Hall School where she practiced shooting the school’s architecture and the flora around campus. She acquired her current Canon DSLR recently and spent time during the pandemic photographing wildlife and landscapes at Leopold’s Preserve and Sky Meadows near Northern Virginia.
“Photography has allowed me to just get outside and enjoy nature during the time of COVID. Working in land conservation allowed me to further appreciate the natural setting of Virginia. I love highlighting protected places and further promoting the need to conserve more of Virginia’s open space, forests, views, and wildlife habitats. I am very detail-oriented so I always look for ways to showcase the small details in photographs, whether it’s looking at all the “pieces” that make up stunning landscapes or the details in the flora and fauna that illustrate their characteristics or behaviors.”
Tori’s photography can be found on her website at www.travelingtorik.com and on her Instagram page (@travelingtori_k).
Thank you to VCN’s Conservation Photographers!
We’d like to thank ALL of our photographers for their beautiful submissions – while we can only have one cover photo, we will be working to fit as many submissions into the 2022 Our Common Agenda as possible – make sure to subscribe to our mailing list to stay up-to-date with the publication release.