Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014

Before Christmas, I went to the WPY 2014 exhibition hosted at the Natural History Museum in London.  I have been to this exhibition several years in a row now; it's become a bit of a "before Christmas" ritual.  And I am also an avid collector of the books, trying to complete the entire series with the help of my "Amazon wishlist"!  This year, however, a strange thing happened.  When I was walking around, I wasn't that impressed.  Usually I'm blown away with this exhibition, but for some reason, on this occasion I couldn't really respond to what I was seeing.  I certainly liked the winning image by Michael Nichols, which, along with another one of his images also in the exhibition, I had previous commented on in a post on my DPP blog, but I wasn't surprised by anything I saw.  At the time I wondered why my reaction was like that, especially when the display and lighting of this exhibition is so amazing and the camera settings are published so you can learn about the exposure and situation, but I thought it might be because I have now seen so much photography in exhibitions, and a lot of wildlife amongst that, that I could be becoming desensitised?  Is wildlife photography now predictable?

Nearly two months later, when I finally got around to writing this post, I checked back to the WPOTY site to see the winning images again.  And they are amazing!  Why didn't I think that at the time?  I still like the black and white lions by Michael Nichols, and a lot of the other images too.  The one I like the most though, shows a group of Ethiopian gelades: Communal Warmth by Simone Sbaraglia.  Primates have such appealing faces, and this is such a beautifully lit bundle of furriness - in this cold weather it would be tempting to join them!  And all of the finalists in the Birds category, are spectacular!  And then that image of the mouse, moon and mosquito, all the underwater shots, the Namibia dunes, and the various story collections; this is all remarkable photography!

So, I'm not sure why my reaction was what it was on the day; the only thing I can think of is that the exhibition is so crowded that it's very hard to walk around and enjoy it.  You can't take your time to look and enjoy an image when people are pushing and standing in front of you, and I think, impatiently, I just got fed up with being there.  This year, I will try and go when it's less busy.

Websites:

• Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year available from http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/wpy/gallery/2014/index.html [accessed 2 February 2015]

Own work referred to:

• National Geographic - August 2013 - B&W animal portraits in Alison Adcock - Digital Photographic Practice Learning Blog available from http://jointheaadpp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/national-geographic-august-2013-b.html [accessed 2 February 2015]