Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 Competition is now on !

Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008

The search for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 has begun.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition is an international showcase for the very best photography featuring natural subjects. The competition is owned by two UK institutions that pride themselves on revealing and championing the diversity of life on Earth – the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Being accepted into this competition is something that wildlife photographers, worldwide, aspire to. Professionals win many of the prizes, but amateurs succeed, too. And that’s because achieving the perfect picture is down to a mixture of skill, vision, originality, knowledge of nature and luck.

Each year thousands of entries are received and judged by a specially selected expert panel. The winners are announced at an awards ceremony that takes place each October at the Natural History Museum, London.

Ben Osborne (UK)

Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007 – Overall Winner

Ben Osborne, Elephant creation, Canon EOS 1D Mark II N + 70-200mm f2.8 lens (set at 135mm); 1/50 sec at f5; ISO 400; beanbag.
© Ben Osborne / Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007

Pictures in this category should take inspiration from nature but reveal new ways of seeing natural subjects or scenes. They can be figurative, abstract or conceptual but must provoke thought or emotional reactions, whether through their beauty or imaginative interpretation.

Ben used his vehicle as a hide while he staked out a water hole in Chobe National Park for three weeks during Botswana’s dry season. When a bull elephant used his trunk to spray himself in the muddy water Ben used a slow shutter speed to capture the low orning light and texture of the mud.

Ben said: “I love the energy in this image. In fact, it has more to do with physics than biology as the mix of light, texture, mass, stress, force, velocity and acceleration are all captured in a visually dramatic moment in time. And apart from anything else, it looks like pretty good fun too.”

Africa’s elephants are both admired and persecuted. In the 1980s, numbers were halved because of the ivory trade, banned in 1989. However, some southern African countries claimed selling ivory helped fund conservation programmes and in 1997 were allowed some exports to Japan. That was overturned in 2000 by the convention in Trade of Endangered Species, until a reliable way to monitor illegal killing is established.

Courtesy The Natural History Museum
© The Natural History Museum, London 2007. All Rights Reserved