Wildlife Photographer of The Year

in Miscellaneous by Marcelo Krause — November 3, 2010 at 1:25 PM | 6 comments

This year the image above was highly commended at the BBC / Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. This is perhaps the most prestigious wildlife and nature photo competition and having a picture among the winers is a great honor. This year’s competition received in excess of 31,000 entries from 81 countries. The image was taken at the Pantanal, a vast wetland on the west part of Brazil. It will be part of my upcoming book portraying the Pantanal wildlife and  landscapes underwater as well as above the water.

The award ceremony was held at the main hall of the National History Museum in London. The event was very well presented and organized, and having dinner under the Diplodocus giant fossil with fellow photographers was something I will cherish for the rest of my life. I meet so many nice people and talented photographers that will be difficult to write about all of then here. There is an exhibit now at the museum with all the pictures, which are backlit creating a gorgeous effect.

It was great to chat with Doug Brown and Jim Neiger. Both specializes in bird photography and had some great images. Doug also teaches at workshops at the USA west coast and leads trips to Costa Rica while Jim has something called Flight School Photography, teaching how to photograph birds in flight.

Also, was very nice to met Thomas Peschak again at the event. We did a few dives together back in 2006 in Mozambique. He is the author of several books and did and excellent article with many great pictures about manta rays congregation on the Maldives for National Geographic Society magazine.

Michael Patrick O’Neill is a veteran of the competition and author of seven books!!! He was born and raised in Brazil but now lives in the USA. He won a prize for this picture os manatees aggregation in Florida.

Florian Schulz is a german nature and wildlife photographer. His image of these rays in  Mexico is one of my favourites in the competition. He also gave an excellent talk with great images and video at Wildphotos.

That’s me among three great underwater photographers. French photographer Pascal Kobeh was the  official still photographer of Disneynature movie Oceans, released this year (great movie by the way). He shared some wonderful images and a very nice story about a near death experience with a polar bear.  Jordi Chias from Spain was the winner of the One Earth Award with his picture of a turtle in trouble (he released the turtle from the net later). He is currently working on a project to document and bring attention to conservations issues on the open water areas of the oceans. And Tony Wu is an american underwater photographer that won the “Underwater World” category with a picture of 4 sperm wales together. Tony is very well know among underwater photographers and his pictures have been widely published in numerous magazines. Be sure to check some trips he leads to see whales in Tonga and to other destinations. He also has a nice blog on his website. Peter Rowlands of the Underwater Photography digital magazine (now on it’s 57th edition) was also there at the press event and was good to see him again.

Another great event I attended following the awards ceremony was WildPhotos. It was a series of talks from many talented wildlife photographers. Among then was David Doubilet, Tim Laman, Stefano Unterthiner, Mark Carwardine, Klaus Nigge, Sandra Bartocha (amazing plant photography) and Sandesh  Kadur among others. It was hosted by Chris Packham who did a very good job presenting the event as well as the WPY award ceremony. Also Sophie Stafford, Kathy Moran and Steve Watkins did a very interesting talk about wildlife publishing and it’s future. For a complete list please go to the Wildphotos website.

I even had some time in London to go out for a beer with other photographers. I have met the Burrard-Lucas brothers in Pantanal last year. They have some pictures that are really impressive and very creative. Outstanding stuff, honestly. They won several award’s on Nature’s Best photo competition. We visited some traditional pubs in the Nothing Hill neighbourhood in London and between the drinks they shared some impressive images and stories about their last trip to Madagascar. For instance, just try to find the gecko in this picture. Visit their blog for the answer.

Marcio Lisa was on his way to the Festival Mondial de L’image Sous-Marine in Marseille, France. We spent some time in London’s touristic places and attended the “An Unforgettable Evening” with David Doubilet, Michael Aw and Leandro Blanco. I met Michael briefly during the CMAS championship at Mauritius in 2007 (I doubt he still remembers me) but I did’t have the chance to say hello this time in London. He also had on image on this year WPY competition.

Finally, on our last day in London I had lunch with Alex Mustard, one of Britain’s top underwater photographers who had just arrived from a trip to Canada.

Many thanks to all the staff at the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine for doing such a great job organizing the events and helping me while in London.