Congratulations #Bflies Instagram Contest Winners

Grand prize winning photo by Philippa Berch aka @philippaberch

Philippa Berch with her prizes.

The results are in! Congratulations to our Butterflies LIVE! #Bflies Instagram Contest finalists and winners. This year we segmented our contest into three categories, a grand prize winner, a People’s Choice Award and a Butterflies Choice award. The Grand Prize winner, chosen based on creativity, fun and photographic composition, is Philippa Berch, who took a magnificent macro photo of a julia butterfly.  When Berch picked up her grand prize package she told me she was grateful to the Garden for providing such great subject matter (both plants and butterflies) to practice her macro photography skills. Berch said she enjoys being here at the Garden so much that she volunteered in the Children’s Garden this summer too. Berch used a Nikon D90 and a Nikkor 60mm 1:2.8 macro lens to capture the image above. Lookout Richmond, now she’s got two cameras — as part of her prize package Berch won a Cannon EOS Rebel T5 18.0 mega-pixel camera.

Richmond Grid brought home the prize for the Butterflies Choice award. Yes, we know butterflies can’t vote, but if they could, this is the one we think they would choose. This award goes to the Instagram post or photo that helps raise awareness about the importance of butterflies and other pollinators, or supports the Garden’s educational mission in some way. Richmond Grid’s Instagram feed is always something special so be sure to check it out. 

Congratulations to our Butterfly’s Choice Award finalists for our ‪#‎Bflies‬ Instagram contest! We chose these entries because they support the Garden’s educational mission and raise awareness of the importance of butterflies and other pollinators. We like how this group of photos illustrates self-teaching, respectful interaction with butterflies, the curiosity of a child looking at the world as a butterfly does and metamorphosis. From left to right, top to bottom, our finalists are: @sneedsnursery, @tjhennessy01, @casiesdavis, @lucerome, @_tsr_, @hollyromey, @sneedsnursery, @lynnprice1776 and @richmondgrid.

The prize for the Butterfly’s Choice Award goes to Greater Richmond Grid for their photo of a girl looking through a magnifying glass at an owl butterfly.

Congratulations to all our finalists, listed below:
1. twilkes68
2. am_green_gobbler_ma
3. whenframesdrop
4. fangirl353
5. hopeandgracepens
6. doubled_c
7. matt.king4
8. ltldvl121
9. lynnprice1776
10. itmekelswee
11. maemoose
12. deannrinehart
13. craftthatverse
14. gintergram
15. kharman777
16. pennycatpink

For our People’s Choice Award we let you choose a winner with a Facebook vote.  Thanks for voting!  Congrats to  @doubled_c  who captured this magical moment of a just-landed butterfly on a young man’s American flag hat.

People’s Choice winner @doubled_c

All the photos were so good and the votes were so close that we wanted to  give prizes to practically everyone. You all did a fabulous job sharing the spirit and beauty of the exhibit. The two photos below also received many, many votes, and we didn’t want to let that go unnoticed. Congrats to Instagrammers @whenframesdrop and @pennycatpink.  Each will win 4 passes to come back to the Garden with friends. Still want to see more great photos from Butterflies LIVE!? Here are all the submissions we received and here are last year’s contest winners. Thanks for playing everyone!

People’s Choice Honorable mentions @whenframesdrop and @pennycatpink. Each will win 4 passes to come back to the Garden with friends.