Winners of Wildlife POTY 2018 revealed
THE WINNERS of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year (WPOTY) competition were recently revealed at a ceremony at the Natural History Museum in London. As featured in last week’s Big Picture in 7Days, top prize and the accolade of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018 went to Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten for his striking image, ‘ The Golden Couple’ (below), but lots of other powerful and moving photographs were honoured too. Sixteen-year- old Skye Meaker was named Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018 with his charming portrait of a leopard waking from her sleep in Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana. Skye has reportedly wanted to be a nature photographer since receiving his first pocket camera at the age of seven. ‘ With precisely executed timing and composition, we get a coveted glimpse into the inner world of one of the most frequently photographed, yet rarely truly seen, animals,’ says competition judge and past winner Alexander Badyaev.
The two images were selected from 19 category winners, and beat over 45,000 entries from 95 countries. Marsel and Skye’s images will be on show in lightbox displays with 98 other category-winning and commended photographs.
Movingly, a number of entries this year suggest that animals experience grief. Notable examples include Ricardo Núñez Montero’s image of a young female mountain gorilla mourning her dead baby, which she carried for weeks (winner of the Behaviour: Mammals category). Frans Lanting, another Dutch nature photographer, received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
A major exhibition at the Natural History Museum opened on 19 October and will tour across the UK and internationally to locations such as Canada, Spain, USA, Australia and Germany. The 2019 competition is now open; for entry details, see www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/wpy/competition.html.