FW Photo Competition 2025: Your top shots revealed

You packed our annual Photo Comp galleries with images detailing everyday life from the hard toil and heady rewards of food production to the beauty of the countryside.

We’ve enjoyed looking at every one of them, and over the following pages reveal the top shots and two highly commended images from the seven categories.

The judges now have the tough job of selecting the overall winner and two runners-up from the top shots in each category.

See also: Upload your festive shots to our Christmas on the Farm gallery

The results will be revealed in 2 January’s issue, and the lucky trio will take a share of the £500 prize pot.

So grab a cuppa, sit back and enjoy this special selection.

Livestock

Top shot: Sleeping beauties

Lisi Chidley captured a pair of the farm’s first twin lambs of 2025, born soon after the family shifted from arable and dairy production to sheep.

What struck Lisi most was how the two lambs seemed perfectly cosy, curled up together against the cold and wet. 

Highly commended: Lamb kisses

This picture shows Katherine Calvert’s Texel lambs playing at sunset on Swaleside Farm in Gunnerside, North Yorkshire.

For a split second it looked as though they were kissing, and she caught the moment just in time.

Highly commended: Highland cows

While out on a walk, Lucy Wale snapped this picture of her neighbour’s Highland cow.

The animal is part of a small herd she passes nearly every day, and Lucy often stops to take in the view, enjoy a quiet moment or share a few words with the cows.  

People 

Top shot: Feeding time with a view

Lucy Cullen took this shot while visiting friends on their farm during lambing.

The scene, set in a rented field overlooking Cornwall’s Percuil River on the Roseland Peninsula, shows part of the Taffinder family’s 120ha mixed farm which runs Dorset-cross ewes and cattle.

Highly commended: Having a mothers’ meeting

Olivia Sibley captured this moment while following the Heythrop Trail during a hunt in Oxfordshire.

A gaggle of old-timer foot followers had a bit of a natter – or, as Olivia has titled the shot, “a mothers’ meeting” – wearing well-worn tweed jackets, yet looking remarkably smart.  

Highly commended: The wonder of the countryside

At Huntshaw Farm, near Earlston in the Scottish borders, Karen Ruthven photographed her father David on the combine during harvest, watched by her son Blair and his friend Jolie.

For Karen, the moment reflects the pull of farming across generations.  

Machinery

Top shot: Chasing sunsets

While out greenlaning in his Land Roveron a clear September evening, Matt Dick spotted GR&P Easton drilling winter barley with a JCB Fastrac 8330 Icon on a farm in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire.

Highly commended: September maize

On a sunny September morning near Richmond, North Yorkshire, Oli Peirson couldn’t resist framing this moment as the light fell perfectly across the field, while the Class Jaguar 980 forager and Fendt 728 with a Bailey trailer moved in step during the maize harvest. 

Highly commended: A farmer never stops

Keen amateur photographer Ruth Davies enjoys photographing landscapes and captured this scene of her husband clearing a local road in Denbighshire with his Case Magnum.

Though of retirement age, he still keeps a hand in at farming, inspiring the photo’s title, “A farmer never stops”. 

Young photographer

Top shot: Hare looking across the corner

While camping in Hadleigh, Suffolk, 16-year-old Hayden Phillips spotted several hares in the surrounding fields.

Fast and “sneaky”, they proved tricky to photograph, but their beauty – especially when standing on their hind legs – kept him trying.

Hayden believes this hare had become separated from the group and was scanning the field corner for them.

Highly commended: Curious cattle

Sixteen-year-old Amy Jones says these curious cattle not only make photogenic subjects, they also bring humour and liveliness to the farm.

A keen photographer, she captured this shot in October on her family’s land beside the Conwy River in Penmaenmawr, North Wales, just weeks before the cows went inside for winter.

Highly commended: Rise and shine, it’s tractor time

Emily Stiles, 16, took this shot on her family farm in Worcestershire at the start of the year.

The tractor is the family’s old T6 180 – in which she learned to drive.

Emily was on her early-morning routine of feeding and bedding-up, following a very special arrival – her heifer had given birth to its first calf.

Wildlife

Top shot: Leap of faith

Captured by Mary Wilde at Penny Hedge hide near Blairgowrie, Perthshire, this shot shows the energy and spirit of the animal in a single moment.

Enthusiastic amateur photographer Mary says: “Red squirrels are endangered, and photographing them is a privilege.” 

Highly commended: Fast asleep rabbits

Staffordshire farmer Robert Court found three baby bunnies hidden in a gravel pile while helping his uncle fill potholes.

“It was like welcoming a newborn into the world,” he says of the magical moment of discovery.

Highly commended: I can lick my nose

On her daily walk, Tracy Marsden spotted three roe deer during mating season at Grove Farm, Whitton, North Lincolnshire.

One young male approached, hiding behind a game strip, more focused on finding a mate than noticing her. “It’s a privilege to witness and record wildlife like this,” she says.

Vintage kit

Top shot: Raindrops not falling on my head

Farmer’s daughter and wife Jenny Schroeder spotted this makeshift tractor “roof” at the Weald of Kent Ploughing Match, near Headcorn.

“It was such a clever way to stay dry,” she says. Minutes later, the clouds opened, soaking everyone else – but the tractor and its inventive driver stayed wonderfully protected.

Highly commended: Trusty old Ford

Louise Bleasdale took this photo on her sheep farm in east Lancashire. The photo catches the evening sunset; in the background, you can see the Three Peaks.

“We have had the Ford for about four years; it does everything and goes everywhere. It pretty much runs on air!”

Highly commended: Vintage red

At the North Notts Spring Ploughing Match at Sutton Cum Lound, in March, Kerry Adams spotted a ploughman filling his McCormick International with diesel.

The vintage red of his tractor perfectly matched his boots. “I love capturing details like this,” she says.

“It’s about seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary and pausing for a moment that won’t happen again.”

Landscapes

Top shot: Grub’s up

Taken on Catherine Johnston’s family farm in Northumberland, this shot, which she titles “Grub’s up” shows some of the farm’s 1,300 ewes and 90 cows at morning feed.

The rising sun and distant mist set the scene with the farm dogs overseeing. “It made a nice moment to capture,” she says.

Highly commended: Beautiful Blackmount mountains

Amy Cropper captured this photo in January on the west coast of Scotland, while taking out a bale of feed to her cows.

She says: “It’s one of those typical winter days – dramatic weather, soft light, and the landscape doing what it does best: surprising you.”

Highly commended: Threads of dawn

A cobweb glistens with dew in the early morning light at Ranelands Farm, North Yorkshire.

While walking her sheepdog, Megan Schofield noticed the intricate web and paused to get her camera out.

She says: “Spiders and farmers are alike – both create something fragile yet essential.”