Winners of Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year announced

21/10/2010 07:54:40

Wildlife photographer of the year 2010
October 2010.The winners of Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 have been announced at a gala awards ceremony held at the Natural History Museum, London.  Click here to see larger images.

A Marvel of ants - Overall winner
The much coveted title of Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year was awarded to Hungarian photographer Bence Máté from Pusztaszer for his image A marvel of ants, a simple shot that captures the complexity of the behaviour of leaf-cutter ants in the Costa Rican rainforest.

Bence's winning photograph is taken from a portfolio which won the competition's Erik Hosking Award. This award is given to the portfolio of six images that represent the best work of young, talented photographers between the ages of 18 and 26 and has not been awarded since 2007, when Bence last won it. Bence has been passionate about nature since he was young. He won his first award in the competition in 2001, in the young category for 15-17 Years, and went on to have several further successes in the competition following this, including two previous wins for the Erik Hosking Award in 2005 and 2007. Speaking about Bence's impressive portfolio, Chair of the judging panel, Mark Carwardine said, ‘These six strong images show a range of subjects and styles. The photographer is clearly a master of his craft with an artist's eye.'

Fergus Gill - Veolia Environnement Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year - Young Overall Winner © Fergus Gill / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010

Young photographer of the year - Fergus Gill again
Fergus Gill from Scotland was crowned Veolia Environnement Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year for the second year in a row.

Living in rural Perthshire, Fergus has been interested in nature since he was young and started taking photographs at the age of nine, when his father encouraged him to carry a camera to record what he saw. Another one of Fergus' images, Eye of the bird, has been highly commended in this year's competition. At 14 he won first prize in his age category in the competition, which gave him the confidence to pursue nature photography as a serious interest. He concentrates in particular on wildlife near his home and the vast majority of his photography, including his winning image this year, occurs in his own back garden.

 

Tony Wu. Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife - Highly Commended Giant encounter The subjects are species officially listed as critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or at risk, and the purpose of the award is to highlight, through photographic excellence, the plight of wildlife under threat. Scar, a ten-year-old sperm whale, loves playing with people as much as he does with the other sperm whales in his group. Injured as a calf off Dominica, he has since bonded with people and invites contact. Scar came right up to Tony when he was snorkelling, resulting in an unusual perspective of the world's largest predator. His massive head is a third of his body length, and he may well grow to be up to 18 metres long. Says Tony, ‘It's a bit unnerving when you're in the water and a nearly full-grown whale charges at you at high speed - and you're not 100 per cent sure it's Scar.' Canon 5D Mark II + 17-40mm f4 lens; 1/200 sec at f7.1; ISO 200; Zillion housing; Pro One optical dome port. © Tony Wu / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010

Speaking about Fergus' winning image, Mark Carwardine says, ‘The hovering fieldfare is posed as an artist might paint it, the delicate yellow of the frozen berries echoing its breast feathers. A winning gem of a picture.'

Selected from tens of thousands of entries from across the globe, the images were judged to be the best of all those entered in the 2010 competition by a judging panel that included some of the world's most respected nature photographers and wildlife experts.

Exhibition
These images will join more than 100 other prize-winning photographs from the competition's 18 categories in a visually stunning and inspiring exhibition that debuts at the Natural History Museum on 22 October 2010. It will then tour nationally and internationally after its launch in the capital.

A commemorative book, Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio 20, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox and published by the Natural History Museum, will be available from 21 October 2010, priced £25. The book contains all winning and commended images from this year's competition.

Now in its 46th year, the competition is owned by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine and is sponsored by Veolia Environnement. It is an international leader in the artistic representation of the natural world and a competition that photographers worldwide aspire to win.

Photographers can enter next year's competition online between12 January and18 March 2011. For further details about the competition and its various categories, or to enter online, visit www.nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto

Exhibition information for visitors: Venue: Natural History Museum Dates: 22 October, 2010 - 11 March 2011 Opening times: every day,10.00-17.50 (closed 24-26 December) Visitor enquiries: 020 7942 5000 Nearest tube: South Kensington Visitors can buy tickets at the Museum or online. Latest details of UK regional and international tour venues are available on the website

admission cost Adult, Gift Aid admission £9*  Concession and child, Gift Aid admission £4.50* Family, Gift Aid admission £24* (up to two adults and three children) Free for Members, Patrons and children under four * If you are a UK taxpayer and pay the Gift Aid admission ticket price, the Natural History Museum can reclaim the tax on the whole ticket price you pay. For every £100 worth of tickets sold, we can claim an extra £28 from Government. This means you can further support the work of the Museum. The standard admission charges are adult £8, concession and child £4 and family £21. The right of entry is the same for visitors with or without the voluntary donation.

 A Marvel of Ants

When Bence first tried to photograph leaf-cutter ants in action, he thought it was going to be easy. It wasn't, but relishing the challenge, he found out as much as he could about their complex society and spent hours watching and following them in the Costa Rican rainforest. ‘They proved to be wonderful subjects,' says Bence, who discovered that they were most active at night. He would follow a column as it fanned out into the forest.

Each line terminated at a tree, shrub or bush. ‘The variation in the size of the pieces they cut was fascinating - sometimes small ants seemed to carry huge bits, bigger ones just small pieces.' Of his winning shot, he says, ‘I love the contrast between the simplicity of the shot itself and the complexity of the behaviour.' Lying onthe ground to take the shot, he also discovered the behaviour of chiggers (skin-digesting mite larvae), which covered him in bites.

Nikon D700 + 105mm f2.8 lens; 1/200 sec at f10; ISO 640; SB-800 flash.
© Bence Máté / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010

 

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 The Frozen Moment

On Boxing Day 2009, it was so cold in Scotland (-17°C /1°F) that the birds were desperate for food. A rowan tree at the bottom of Fergus's garden in Perthshire became a magnet for thrushes - five of the six British species - song thrushes, mistle thrushes, blackbirds, redwings and a flock of about 15 fieldfares, all frantically picking the berries.

Fergus wanted to capture the freezing feel of the day while showing the character of fieldfares in action, some
of which were hovering to pluck berries. His biggest challenge (other than the cold itself) was to isolate a fieldfare against a clear background, and the only way to get the angle was to stand on his frozen pond. Risking a high ISO setting as well as the ice, he caught both the moment and the delicacy of colour he was after.

Nikon D300 + 500mm f4 lens; 1/500 sec at f4; ISO 800; Manfrotto 680B monopod + 293 tripod head.
© Fergus Gill / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010

Caiman's little mouthful   Bence Máté - Eric Hosking Award - Winner The aim of this award is to encourage talented young photographers aged 18 to 26. It is given for a portfolio of six images representing the photographer's best work. It's not often that wildlife photographers simply come across a subject. This, though, was just about as spontaneous as a shot can be. Bence had spent a long, hard day building a hide. As he headed back to his lodge in Brazil's Pantanal, he encountered a 3-metre-long (11-foot) caiman ambling across the lawn. Dangling from its jaws were the remains of a young armadillo. In the dry season, caimans are forced to venture farther afield to hunt, but it's rare to see one with prey. ‘I raced to get my telephoto lens,' says Bence. ‘By the time I got back, the caiman was nearly at the river, so I dropped to my knees and started shooting. I had no strategy, no plan, no hide. I was so lucky to get the shot.' Nikon D700 + 300mm f2.8 lens; 1/2500 sec at f5; ISO 800.  © Bence Máté / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010

The skin trade - part of a six image story entitled "'It's just an animal'" Mark Leong - Wildlife Photojournalist of the Year - Winner This award is given to a sequence of six pictures that tells a memorable story, whether about behaviour or an environmental issue. It has to work without the aid of words and is judged on picture quality as well as the power of the story itself. Medicine, cosmetics, food, luxury goods, fashion, entertainment, aquariums, interior design, pets...the international markets for wildlife and wildlife products are insatiable, and the illegal trade in rare and endangered species is thriving. Mark's reportage captures the ignorance, apathy, corruption and cruelty that sustain this multi-billion-dollar industry. Every day, workers in Rantau Prapat, Sumatra, slaughter and skin hundreds of reptiles brought to them by trappers. ‘There were masses of tied-up sacks full of live pythons and monitor lizards,' says Mark. ‘The men kill or at least stun each animal with a blow to the head. Then they fill the snake with water and air to make it easier to slit open, gut and skin.' The dried skins are sold to the international leather-goods industry, to be made into luxury and fashion items such as wallets, belts and boots. The gall bladders go to Chinese traditional medicine dealers. ‘I wanted to convey both the volume of the processing as well as the hellish element of this assembly line, to get across the message that this is an industrial-scale wild-animal trade.' Nikon D2x + Sigma 14mm f2.8 aspherical lens; 1/60 sec at f4; ISO 320.  © Mark Leong / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010