Tony Cork has won $10,000 in a photography competition organised by Scoopshot – a service for buying and selling photos captured using the Scoopshot app for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile. Cork’s photo of his son and granddaughter playing in the ocean beat more than 18,000 other entries to bag the $10,000 prize in the competition, which asked photographers to share photos summing up their summer. The photograph was taken using the Scoopshot app on a Samsung Note 2 smartphone while enjoying a quiet day on the beach by the Atlantic Ocean with his wife, two sons, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.

Viewbug are giving away $3000 of prizes in their latest photo contest. You can win either a Canon 5D MK III or a Nikon D800 by sharing your best photos showing human and animal bonding. Photos must show both humans and animals and entries are limited to three per person.

Viewbug - I Heart Animals

Photography education and entertainment site PhoozL has announced a special photo contest (‘Beauty’) that will benefit the Josephine Herrick Project. This is a paid-entry ($25), judged contest open to all photographers, amateur to pro, 18+, worldwide. Contest prizes include: a 1:1 personal communication with judge Robert Farber about the winner’s entries or photographic work, a $500 Gift Card from photo retailer Unique Photo, a one-year subscription to Aperture Magazine, a free book selection from the digital photography catalogue of Cengage Learning PTR, custom award icons, inclusion in PhoozL’s Winners Showcase, and bonus PhoozL Points. To see more details and to submit by 19 November 2013, head to the website below.

Leica has launched a creative challenge for 120 participants in 4 cities. The Leica X Vario City Challenge is a coast to coast Leica Camera photo competition with a twist: Leica fans in New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and Miami can compete for the chance to win a Leica X Vario (pictured) among many other valuable prizes. Interested readers living in one of these cities are encouraged to sign up, select their favourite image, and submit it to #XVarioChallenge. Click through / read on for the details.

The sixth annual International Loupe Awards are open for entries. Photographers entering the Loupe Awards select a competition stream – either Open or Amateur – depending on their photographic experience. Those entering the Open Award are eligible for cash prizes across categories, as well as a major award of approximately $15,000. Amateur Award entrants are offered prizes in photographic gear and equipment, courtesy of Kayell Australia. Regular entres for the International Loupe Awards 2013 will close on 31st October (late entries on 15th November). Category judging will take place from 8th to 27th November, with final judging between 2nd and 6th December. Winner announcements will commence from 9th December 2013.

Exhibtr, the social network for photographers, artists and writers, has partnered with Olympus UK to host a competition for students. The theme of the contest is “People & Portraits.” Students entering the competition have the opportunity to win an Olympus OM-D E-M5 kit including the camera body and an M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm 1:3.5-6.3 lens. Two runners-up will be awarded the "soon to be announced latest high-end compact from Olympus," which sounds intriguing. To enter, simply sign up to exhibtr.com. Once logged in you may upload as many entries as you like. However, remember to ensure all entries you would like to be judged are tagged with the phrase “olycomp.” The competition is open from now until February 2014, to all UK students aged 16 or older.

The 2013 ZeissImages.com photo contest is now open for entries. This years theme will be "Ordinary Life". A semi documentary theme where the objective is to capture an ordinary moment in someone's day that becomes an extraordinary photo for everyone to view. This could be a scene from someone struggling to get by day to day or the thrill of a child blowing out a candle on a birthday cake. The photo just needs to portray real events in life that when viewed as a photograph are memorable. Any submitted entry must be photographed with a Zeiss lens. This means smart phones with built in Zeiss lenses are acceptable as are point and shoot cameras, dslr's, rangefinder cameras etc. To submit your photos, you must be a registered member of Zeissimages.com and upload your photos into the category "2013 Contest."

Celebrity Cruises have announced a new photography competition to find the "best smartphone photo ever taken." The company has partnered with professional photographers Stuart Franklin, Ian Berry, Art Wolfe, Massimo Vitali and Oliver Lang who will judge the entries. The winner will be appointed Celebrity Cruises ‘Photo Ambassador for 2014’ and embark on a 14-night Scandinavia & Russia cruise in May 2014. To enter, submit your picture via the website below. The deadline for submissions is 15 November 2013. As always, we suggest that you read the terms and conditions before entering your work.

If you are looking for a camera bag then look no further. The Hama Defender 220 is the ultimate protection for your gear. Photography Blog and LoveCases are giving you the opportunity to win this great bag worth £114.95.

The lucky winner is Lynda Mansell. Congratulations!

The Defender 220 is the ultimate in protection when it comes to keeping your SLR or DSLR camera safe from scratches and damage. The bag is thick and gives solid resistance to all bumps and knocks, the lid of the bag is kept securely with two interlocking clasps and each part of your camera and camera accessories are kept separate internally - preventing them from rubbing and scratching.

The bag has further storage for your everyday accessories such as keys, identification, phones and more. This bag has the capacity to store the vast majority of additional camera lenses meaning that you can be sure that all of your camera carrying needs are met.

The Societies have launched a new competition for photography students. Phil Jones, The Societies CEO says “We are looking forward to seeing the talented work of student photographers. Open to all full-time students with no preference on genre, we are eager to see a broad range of topics entered in to this competition, from images captured on high-end cameras to images showing the capabilities of smaller cameras or even mobile phones. We are simply looking for creativity and imagination." The submission date is 31 December 2013. For details and to enter, visit the website below.

British photographer Mark French has been named as the  winner of CBRE’s 2013 Urban Photographer of the Year competition. The annual competition run by CBRE, the world’s largest property advisor, is now in its sixth year and is the largest global photography competition of its kind. The theme for the contest was ‘Cities at Work’, challenging entrants to capture the essence of urban life. French’s winning entry, Looking Good at Work (above) depicts a solitary tram driver amongst a crowd of advertising, taken at 9am during Hong Kong’s rush hour.

Essentia Water has announced its Create A Better You photo competition, which is hosted on Essentia’s Facebook page. Running through 2nd November, the 4-week online contest invites US residents over the age of 18 to share photos that illustrate what inspires them to be happier and healthier. Essentia’s Facebook community will have the chance to vote for their favorite images and select the weekly People’s Choice winner. The company will also select one photo each week. Both winners will receive a case of Essentia Water, and their images will be used as the brand’s weekly inspirational post on its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

eHarmony has just launched its Love Captured photography competition. Celebrating eHarmony’s five year anniversary, the competition offers a grand prize of £5,000 to the photo which best captures the concept of love, whether it’s a touching photo of a couple or friends sharing a special moment, or an abstract image that symbolises love. Visitors to lovecaptured.eharmony.co.uk will be able to view the gallery of entries and vote on their favourite images. The entry that receives the most votes in each region will automatically go through to the final 25, from which the overall winner will be chosen. The competition will run until 17 January 2014.

The Society of Nature and Wildlife Photographers has announced the winners of the Essence of Nature Photographic Competition. David Morton from Wellington, Somerset was chosen as the winner from over 200 images entered in to the competition, with the image entitled ‘Red-Footed Falcons Mating’ (above). The photograph was taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, EF 500mm f/4 lens, ISO 1250, aperture of f/7.1, shutter speed of 1/500s in the Hortobágy National Park in Hungary. The runners-up are Peter Preece from Studley, Warwickshire and Armindo Pereira Torres from Portugal.

Autodesk has announced the Snap, Style and Share design competition that encourages students across the world to show off their photography skills using Autodesk’s Pixlr Express app. To participate, students (ages 13-24) must take a picture of something they think demonstrates exceptional design, edit the picture with at least three Pixlr Express editing tools and share the before/after images by 25th October. A panel of judges will select the winning photo to be showcased at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco. An assortment of prizes such as new tablets are also up for grabs. As always we suggest that you read the rules before entering your work.

Website: Snap, Style & Share

The winners of the Epson International Pano Awards 2013 competition have been announced. The overall winner of the Open Competition was Timo Lieber from the UK with a compelling black-and-white photograph of Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert, USA (above). The winner of the Amateur competition was Gary Schlatter of Australia, with a monochromatic image of a famous cluster of Cypress trees near San Quirico d'Orcia, Tuscany. The VR/360° competition winner was Dmitry Moiseenko with a spectacular aerial image of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

There are only a few days left for photographers and artists to enter the inaugural Art Gemini Prize. Open to all photographers and painters form anywhere in the world, the Art Gemini Prize is described as "a celebration to promote international contemporary art for emerging and established artists." A cash fund of £5000 will be awarded to the winners in three categories, Photography, Painting and Public Choice. The shortlisted applicants will be exhibited in London at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery. The deadline for entries is 30 September 2013. Do note that entry fees apply.

EyeTime 2013 invites students and young professionals or enthusiasts to submit a collection of up to three digital images. The competition is supported by the ICP (International Center of Photography), APA (American Photographic Artist), ADC (Art Directors Club), and is hosted by The Morpholio Project. The jury includes participants from Wired Magazine, Resource magazine, Light Stalking, Shutter Sisters, Psychology for Photographers, and the ICP. There are two categories, Emerging Talent and Future Voices. The competition is free to all entrants.

Canon U.S.A. has announced the five winning consumer directors of the “Project Imaginat10n” film contest. The challenge was to create a short film inspired by ten crowdsourced photos in ten storytelling themes: Character, Mood, Goal, Backstory, Setting, Obstacle, Relationship, The Unknown, Time and Discovery. From hundreds of film submissions, twenty finalists were selected by a panel of judges. From there, Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard selected five winners to be part of “A Ron Howard Presentation.” The five Grand Prize winners include Kálmán Apple, Ronnie Allman, Julian Higgins, Arrius Sorbonne and Jared Nelson. The winning consumer-directed films can be viewed at the website below.

David Noton has announced a photography competition for f11 members. The judges will be looking for f11 Members’ pictures that display the most imaginative and perceptive photographic vision, and the winner will receive a day of one-to-one tuition with David, arranged at a mutually convenient time and location. All finalists will have their images featured in a special Your Vision Competition Winners f11 Member’s Gallery in the February 2014 issue of David's Chasing the Light eZine. Full f11 members have until 1 January 2014 to submit their entries as low-resolution JPEGs to [email protected]