The Society has announced the winners of its International Projected Image competition, an open competition with digital sections in both General and Nature categories. This year, the selectors viewed nearly 4,000 images from over 700 photographers worldwide, and 413 images were selected for the exhibition.

Lesley Goode, RPS Exhibitions Manager, said, 'The Nature category was of a high standard this year, and some of the images that were selected are outstanding and represent some of the very best nature pictures around.  The Gold award winning image of an Ant Drinking, by Vincentius Ferdinand from Indonesia, was unanimously praised by the selectors, for its quality and originality'.

This Exhibition has been established for many years and continues to attract a very high entry worldwide. The General category welcomes a wide range of subject matter from the artistic to the documentary and the Nature category depicts observations from all branches of natural history. Each section has its own specialist selectors, all Fellows of the Society.

There are Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards in each category and, since 2004, the exhibition has been awarded recognition by the Photographic Society of America (PSA) and acceptances can be credited towards PSA Star Ratings.

RPS President, Roy Robertson Hon FRPS said: 'A very wide variety of work was entered .. The winning images are outstanding, and I congratulate everybody who has work selected, in particular, the Award winners.'

General category selector, Anne Sutcliffe FRPS said, 'I think this year’s award winning images share several important characteristics. They are universally of high quality and represent the best of their genre. All capture a decisive moment whether it is a sporting moment, a brief period of sympathetic light, a mood, or the culmination of the photographer’s creativity. Whatever the subject, the photographer’s empathy with it and their ability to show it to its best advantage shines through'

The inaugural showing and presentation of awards will take place on 27th October at Sparsholt, near Winchester, before the Exhibition tours the UK.  A CD Rom of the Exhibition will be available from the end of October from The Society's online shop www.rps.org/store The CD can be used for showing at Camera Clubs and photographic events.

All details, including Award winning images at www.rps.org/IPIE2012