The winners of this year’s NHM Wildlife Photographer of the Year have been announced
Camera technology is pushing the boundaries of what photographers can capture, as demonstrated by this year’s NHM Wildlife Photographer of the Year overall winner, American Tim Laman.
The winning image ‘Entwined lives’ depicts the critically endangered Bornean Orangutan clinging to a tree towering above the Indonesian rainforest. Tim Laman spent three days rope-climbing the 30-metre tree to set up several GoPro cameras, which he was able to trigger remotely. A healthy slice of luck undoubtedly contributed to his wide-angle aerial portrait of this special creature, but the effort was worth it as he beat almost 50,000 entries from as many as 95 countries to bag the top spot.
Audun Rikardsen (Norway) – Splitting the catch
Tim’s image will be on show with 99 other shots selected by an international panel of judges at the fifty-second Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. The exhibition at Natural History Museum opens on 21 October 2016, before touring across the UK and internationally to locations such as Spain, Canada, the USA, Germany and Macau.
“Protecting their remaining habitat is critical for orangutans to survive. If we want to preserve a great ape that retains its vast culturally transmitted knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest and the full richness of wild orangutan behaviour, then we need to protect orangutans in the wild, now,” said Tim, following his submission.
Sir Michael Dixon, Director of the Natural History Museum, London, which runs the competition, comments: “Wildlife Photographer of the Year highlights some of the big questions for society and the environment: How can we protect biodiversity? Can we learn to live in harmony with nature? The winning images touch our hearts, and challenge us to think differently about the natural world.”
Gideon Knight, aged 16, won the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title for his image The moon and the crow (pictured above). Captured near his home in London, his image shows the twigs of a sycamore tree artistically silhouetted against the dark blue sky and the full moon. Speaking about his winning entry, Gideon said that his composition “makes it feel almost supernatural, like something out of a fairy tale.”
Head over to nhm.ac.uk/wpy for more information and to have a look at some of the other images entered this year. Submissions for WPOTY53 will open on October 24th.
Location: Natural History Museum
Nearest tube: South Kensington
Website: nhm.ac.uk/wpy
Facebook: www.facebook.com/wildlifephotographeroftheyear
Twitter: @NHM_WPY
Instagram: @NHM_WPY
