VIRTUAL MEETING | Weather Photographer of the Year – Meet the Experts

Prof Liz Bentley is the Chief Executive at the Royal Meteorological Society and will be chairing the event. Liz is also the head judge of the competition.

As Chief Executive of the Society, Liz works with the Council of Trustees to give vision, direction and leadership to its programmes of work. She first joined the Royal Meteorological Society in 2008 as Head of Communications and became Chief Executive in 2013. Liz has had a successful career in Meteorology working with the Met Office, BBC Weather Centre and the Ministry of Defence after studying a PhD in mathematics at the University of Manchester.

‘I was born in Yorkshire and I’m sure my upbringing on top of the Pennines, where the weather can be a little more extreme, is one of the main reasons why I became so fascinated by the weather. I often marvel at the beauty and power of the weather and capturing that in a photograph can be quite magical.’

The driving force behind Green Island Studios, Jo is an award-winning photographer who takes pictures of wild and windy Dartmoor from her studio doorstep and posts them on Instagram as @greenislandstudios where she has a large and loyal following for her smartphone photography. 

At Green Island Studios, Jo has created a bespoke analogue darkroom and photography workshop and studio space from where she has developed a unique collection of workshops and courses in smartphone photography. The courses range from beginner’s sessions to masterclasses and Jo delivers these from the studio as well as for the Royal Photographic Society.

Jo is the best-selling author of ‘Smart Phone Smart Photography’ and her exciting new book on mobile editing, ‘Smart Phone Smart Photo Editing’ (which is now available for pre order) will publish in autumn 2021.  

As well as delivering her courses, Jo works as an Associate Lecture at Falmouth University where she lectures on the BA Marine and Natural History Photography degree.

I have lived in Blackpool all my life and I had an early interest in photography after picking up my mum's Kodak Instamatic 126 camera. I eventually moved up to a 35mm SLR and joined a local photographic society where I learned a lot about photographic techniques. 

Weather photography always fascinated me and when I captured lightning strikes crashing down over my hometown in the summer of 2015 the picture went viral, appearing in most major newspapers. Lightning storms with the intensity of the one I captured are extremely rare in this part of the world, which makes the shot even more remarkable. The shot is now firmly a part of history which I will talk about as long as I live. 

After winning the RMetS Weather Photographer of the Year award in 2018, a competition which I helped judge the following year, I decided to take up professional photography full time after 20 years self-employed in the landscaping business.

www.stephencheatleyphotography.co.uk

I'm a photographer based on Anglesey with a huge passion for landscape and Astrophotography. Also, the proud father to my children Deio Huw and Sadie Mon.
 
I really feel very fortunate living on Anglesey. It gives me the freedom to be at a wide deserted beach in the morning, then I could be up one of Snowdonia’s stunning mountain ranges. I was 34 years old when I picked up my first camera and my passion for capturing nature in its elements will never leave me.

My work has been published in several photographic magazines and my experience in astrophotography has led me to some TV features with the BBC, ITV and S4C, which I have found very rewarding in boosting my self-confidence. I was very fortunate back in 2017 to have one of my photos in the BBC Countryfile calendar and shortly after I received a photographic award for Outdoor photo of the year in 2018. My biggest and proudest accolade in photography was winning the prestigious 2019 Weather Photographer of the Year with the Royal Meteorological Society.    
 

https://garethmon.com/

As Social Media Manager for AccuWeather, as well as a meteorologist and meteorological blogger and photography enthusiast, Jesse Ferrell oversees the strategic management for social media channels, creating highly engaging posts that serve as a touchpoint for millions of AccuWeather fans, followers and platform community members. Jesse was responsible for leading the charge to create the first interactive, multimedia news story featured on accuweather.com using Forecaster text files, TV “ultragraphics” and links driving traffic back to the company website.

With an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, Jesse supported the management of subscription services, eventually creating AccuWeather’s RadarPlus subscription service in 2005. In that same year, Jesse became the first accuweather.com blogger during Hurricane Katrina and remains an active author for weather blogs today.

Before joining AccuWeather, Jesse developed an online group of weather enthusiasts and reporters, WeatherMatrix, where he served as founder and president for almost a decade.

Jesse earned his BSc in Meteorology from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In his spare time Jesse enjoys chasing storms, photographing weather conditions and spending time with his family.

Follow Jesse @weathermatrix

Mark is the creator of StormHour, a community of weather fans and photographers. He runs a weekly weather photo competition in association with the Royal Meteorological Society and was a finalist in the 2016 Weather Photographer of the Year competition. Mark was also part of the judging panel for last year's competition.

stormhour.com

Mike runs Photocrowd, who host the Weather Photographer of the Year competition on their platform. He worked as a photographer for many years in London and set Photocrowd up in 2012 as a place where photographers could enter some of the best photo contests and awards around, and get inspiration from each other, and from top professional photographers. 

The site gets over 100,000 visitors a month and is proud to be working with RMetS on this fabulous photography awards that is going from strength to strength.