A while back I mentioned the upcoming Garden Photographer of the Year awards for all you budding SLR maestros. Well, if you weren't enticed before to enter maybe the upgraded awards package might tempt you out of your lazy-boy and into the garden.

Here's GPOTY's press release;

The Garden Photographer of the Year Team is delighted to announce the support of Manfrotto, Kata and Visible Dust as prize sponsors for the forthcoming competition.

In addition to the main cash prizes of £5000 for Best Single Image and £5000* (includes £2000 Calumet vouchers), for The Best Portfolio, there is now a generous range of more than £10 000 worth of vouchers for products from these highly reputable brands. This means that the total prize pot of cash and vouchers now exceeds £25,000.

The full range of cash and equipment prizes for winners and runners-up for each of the categories can be found on the website, gpoty.org

Prizes for Young Garden Photographer of the Year will be announced shortly.

Entries close on 31.1.08 and participants can enter single images or themed portfolios in each of the following categories:

• Plant Portraits
• Garden Views
• My Garden
• Life in the Garden
• Trees

The top 100 winning and commended images will be shown at a purpose-built outdoor exhibition in Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London from May to September 2008 to an audience of hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Andrew Lawson, Judge and Director of the Garden Photographer of the Year said, “ We're delighted to have such stunning prizes and we're particularly pleased to be able to reward the sustained work of portfolios as well as single images. The prize fund of £10,000 cash recognises flower and garden photography as the equal of landscape, travel and natural history photography, which already have their own competitions. The extra £10,000 worth of vouchers from the Manfrotto, Kata and Visible Dust brands adds a whole new dimension”.

So, get cracking.