If You’re Having A Bad Day, These Winners From The Comedy Pet Photography Awards 2021 Are Bound To Make It Better (17 Pics)

Bored Panda reached out to Tom who is one of the co-founders of the competition, with some questions. First, we asked Tom about how they chose the final winner for the photography contest.

“The images are considered by a wide variety of judges, including pet lovers, animal welfare experts, photographers and this year, for the first time, we had some keen younger judges through our partnership with Animals Friends Pet Insurance, which was brilliant and important and something we want to continue going forwards. Each judge scores the images out of 20 and then we add them up. The winner is the one with the biggest score. It is remarkably simple and unscientific - thank goodness!”

Then, we were curious to find out how the idea of the photography contest came to be.

“It was following the success of our other sister competition Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, which had been running for a couple of years, and Paul Joynson Hicks, the other co-founder and I suddenly thought, why not do the same but for pets? And the Comedy Pet Photo Awards was born. Pets are such an important part of our lives and being more accessible perhaps than wildlife, we can get more people involved and engaged to do something for pet animal welfare and raise a smile or two in the process.”

Given how new yet popular the contest is, we were wondering whether it was the first year Tom and all other co-founders were hosting it.

“No, this is actually only the second consecutive year, although we did have the very first one in 2017 as a one-off. The competition is very, very young still and we are really keen to grow it and for it to become a staple in the photographic competition calendar. Why not?!”

Given the chance, we also inquired about the number of entries the judges received.

“We received 2100 entries from 49 different countries.”

One would think that organizing a photography contest might leave the co-founders with some challenges, but Tom was quick to reassure us: "Not really. We get to see wonderful, heartwarming and often hilarious images and videos from all over the world of people appreciating and celebrating their pets - it’s a very positive thing to be involved in - we love our jobs!”

Given how the pandemic has affected so many things in life, we were curious whether it posed any positives or negatives to the photography contest.

“It has meant that we haven’t been able to plan for an Awards Night, which would be a brilliant way to cap off the year, but maybe next year. In terms of images/videos entered, we have seen a huge increase in dogs, particularly puppies entered because of people acquiring dogs while they were working from home. In a way, it is fitting that the winner is a puppy!”

Finally, we wanted to know which of the photos was the personal favorite of Tom's even if it didn't make it to the final cut.

“One of my favorites that was a finalist but just missed out on the Grand Winners Titles was the Cat Model by Kenichi Morinaga (click here to see the picture). The expression is definitely that of a supermodel with attitude!”