WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR AWARDS IN A PANDEMIC?

THE SHOW MUST GO ON!

Representing wildlife photography at the first socially distanced Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards

Let’s not beat around the bush - 2020 has been the weirdest year most of us can remember. With all of the restrictions around social distancing, it was also one of the strangest years for the NHM Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards in its half-century history. Typically, there’s a big ceremony held at the Hintze Hall (the main entrance atrium where Hope and Dippy have welcomed 5 million annual visitors) in the Natural History Museum, where all of the winners, judges and special guests get dressed up for dinner with the dinosaurs and amazing stories are shared, speeches are made and awards are handed out. But this year of course, that wasn’t possible…

HOWEVER! The Natural History Museum and the team at Wildlife Photographer of the Year made certain that despite the pandemic, we would celebrate wildlife photography and the show would go on. Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin were invited to host the first ever live-streamed and socially distanced ceremony and the winners were invited to accept their awards online in real-time, so that we could all get a glimpse inside the awards from the comfort of our homes.

Having been awarded in the competition twice previously, I was invited to attend and be on hand to answer any questions from the public. It was a little strange to be the only photographer physically there, but it was really great to see the event come together and all of the hard work the organisers put in to make it work despite the pandemic! You can watch the main event via the link below, but the stream of the intro and all of the behind-the-scenes extras etc. is unfortunately only available via a private link.

The 2020 overall winner was this amazing image displayed below by Sergey Gorshkov. I don’t want to get into the technicalities of why this was such a difficult image to capture, but trust me - IT WAS! But… I do want to say that this winning image is representative of the sea-change that we are experiencing as human beings. There is a wild part of us inside that resents losing our connection with nature and will do everything we can to cling to it. This pandemic has made us all realise how important nature is for our physical and mental health and for me, this image is about embracing and remembering that. Roll on WPY 2021!

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR BOOK FRONT COVER AND LEAD PUBLICITY IMAGE WORLDWIDE!

THE MOST FAMOUS FOX IN THE WORLD?

The 2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards results have recently been announced so I'm really happy to share that my image "Nosy Neighbour" has been chosen as not only the front cover of this year's winners portfolio book, but it's also going to be used as the lead publicity image to promote the WPY 52 exhibition as it tours the globe. I'm super stoked as apparently it's the first time in the competition's history that the same image has been used for both.

I've already seen it on on billboards across the UK, but I've also been sent pictures of Nosy Neighbour posters by friends on all sides of the globe, including the USA, Canada and Australia, so he's possibly the most famous fox in the world right now! Having my picture on the front cover of the Portfolio 26 book is a great accolade and dream come true for me as the WPY portfolio books are real collectors items for all wildlife photographers - they showcase the world's best and most innovative wildlife photography, so I'm humbled to be featured so prominently in this year's competition.

MARINE LITTER STORY IN 6 PAGE AUDUBON FEATURE AND AWARDED BY IUCN

I'm super excited to see my gannet / marine litter story published across 6 pages in the winter issue of Audubon Magazine - the flagship quarterly journal of the National Audubon Society. The same series has also been awarded 3rd place in the Nature Images Awards presented by Terre Sauvage Magazine and IUCN - the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

You can read the full article online on the Audubon site here:

An Annual Rescue Mission to Free Northern Gannets Tangled in Plastic Trash

It's such an important story, which highlights the problem of plastic marine pollution, so I'm stoked to see it getting plenty of attention and exposure on both sides of the Atlantic. It's an international problem and the only real solution is education, so I'm really happy and appreciative that Audubon, Terre Sauvage and IUCN are helping to spread the word.

BRITISH WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS - 9 IMAGES AWARDED

The British Wildlife Photography Awards recently announced the 2016 winners, including nine of my pictures, which were highly commended. A set of six from my Northern Gannet series, featuring the desperate situation on Grassholm Island, where birds become entangled in marine litter was the runner up in the Documentary Series category.

I also received two highly commended in the Urban Wildlife category - a spotted flycatcher nest in an old brick wall and an unusual mistle thrush nest in a traffic light. Lastly, my image of a red fox vixen suckling young cubs in a suburban garden was awarded highly commended in the Behaviour category. A pretty good haul in total!

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR FINALIST

My fox image "Nosy Neighbour" has just been released as one of the handful of preview images from this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards. It's all over the papers and online today, being shared widely and is being used as the lead image in most of the features. The best headline I think I've read so far is "This stunning picture of a fox on a Bristol street could be the best wildlife picture in the world"!! This image has already had some decent exposure, so I'm pretty surprised it made it into this year's WPY52 collection, but I'm really happy the judges thought it was strong enough despite that. It may have been seen by a lot of the wildlife photography community, but WPY will bring it to a whole new audience when the exhibition tours the globe and the book goes on sale internationally. Excited and looking forward to awards night and seeing the rest of the winners. Awesome to be a part of this competition for the second time!!

BRITISH WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS - HIGHLY COMMENDED

The winners of the British Wildlife Photography Awards have been announced this week and one of my toad images from this series received a highly commended in the urban nature category. I think it's a great time for UK wildlife photography at the moment - there are so many talented photographers (particularly the young guys) producing new and exciting work, so I was pleased to have a fun evening at the awards ceremony catching up with some of them :)

British Wildlife Photography Awards - Collection 6 with all of the winning images from 2015 is available here.

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR BLOG CONTRIBUTION

The "Urban" category is making a comeback in the 2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. To celebrate this, the organisers asked myself and two awesome wildlife photographers - Alex Badyaev and Pål Hermansen, to share our thoughts about urban wildlife. I am a big believer that wildlife should not be seen as something that exists outside of the city and that urban wildlife photography plays a big part in helping people realise that humans and wildlife must coexist. The piece can be found on the Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year site here..

 

URBAN WILDLIFE - THE QUIET SPECTACLE OF THE COMMONPLACE

NATURE'S IMAGES AWARDS 2014

The results of the 2014 Melvita Nature's Images Awards have just been announced this morning and my recently published Berlin goshawk story and one of my urban fox pictures have both been awarded. The goshawk set (12 images) was a runner-up in the Man and Nature category and my fox in the Nature in the City category. A nice way to finish off 2014 and my best year so far in the major wildlife photography competitions with a total of 21 awarded images.

You can see all of the winners and runners-up on the competition website: www.natureimagesawards.com/palmares-2014

In unrelated news, my parakeet image has been included in the Daily Mail's "Most Amazing Photographs of 2014". View the full selection here.

BBC WILDLIFE COVER AND WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

Tuesday was definitely my biggest night of the year. First of all, it was Wildlife Photographer of the year week, which in itself was great to be a part of. The night of the awards was loads of fun and the standard this year is absolutely incredible. My parakeet image "Feral Spirits" was a finalist in the birds category so I got my first peek of it in the special 50th anniversary awards book and in the competition exhibition at the Natural History Museum. I also had a dream come true when I got to meet Sir David Attenborough and shake him by the hand. He's been a hero of mine ever since I can remember and has always been an inspiration in keeping my interest in natural history alive. What made the night even more special, was that I got to see my fox image on the cover of BBC Wildlife Magazine. The special WPY issue featuring all the winners is given out on the night with a copy of the WPY book, and the awards is the first time anybody sees it, so to have the front cover and of this particular issue totally blew me away. Finally, it was also announced that my parakeet image was highly commended in the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year in the Man and Nature category. To say I'm on a high is quite an understatement!

BBC Wildlife magazine are currently running a gallery of my fox pictures including the cover: www.discoverwildlife.com/gallery/amazing-urban-fox-photos

URBAN PEREGRINE SERIES AWARDED IN BRITISH WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

A series of 6 pictures from my urban peregrine project has just been awarded in the documentary series category in this year's British Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards. One of the images was also chosen for the invitation to the awards ceremony on Wednesday night.

My urban peregrine project has been my longest term UK project to date, so it's really nice to see them in the biggest UK wildlife photography competition.

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR SUCCESS

UPDATE OCTOBER 25th: LINK TO IMAGE ON WPY SITE

A few images have been released early from this year's special 50th anniversary Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and I'm really excited to finally share that I have been awarded in the birds category. There's a sneak preview of this year’s awards is in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine, featuring a nice double page spread of my image of parakeets flying through an urban cemetery at dusk.

I’m really happy to be included this year as it’s the 50th anniversary of the awards and my image was chosen from over 41000 entries. I can’t wait to see my picture in the exhibition and book, alongside so many photographers that I respect and that have been such an inspiration to me.

The September BBC Wildlife Magazine will be available in shops from tomorrow and the results of the awards will be announced on the 21st October, when the exhibition will start running at the Natural History Museum and the book containing all of the 50th anniversary awards images will be available.

Competition picture info. 

Feral spirits

Just before dusk fell over London, the birds would start to appear. Sam says there were ‘swarms of them coming in low across the cemetery, heading for their roost in the trees just behind me. I’d keep having to duck.’ Ring-necked parakeets, an Afro-Asian species, are now well established in the wild in Britain – the result of escapes and deliberate releases from captivity – and they are thriving in London. Their winter roosts can be huge – Sam had checked out several before opting for this one. ‘There were probably 5,000 birds – the noise was amazing,’ he says. With a constant stream of arrivals squawking past in groups of 20 or30, Sam worked out the parakeets’ typical flight paths. He set up his kit, experimented with various techniques and realised they were coming close enough for him to use a wide-angle lens. With a burst of flash at the end of a long exposure to create their ghostly trails, Sam captured the essence of these eye‑catching aliens in the English urban landscape. By the time it was dark, an hour and a half after the first arrival, the fly‑past of thousands was complete.

Technical specification

Nikon D7000 + 17–35mm f2.8 lens at 17mm; 1/30 sec at f6.3; ISO 800; Nikon Speedlight SB-800 flash + PocketWizard Plus III remote release; Manfrotto tripod.