Wildlife at the largest photography contest Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer-2012

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Polish satirist Tadeusz Gitsger wondered why animal footprints please us more than human footprints? For participants in the annual competition Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year, nature is home, and animals are the best "models". This year 48 thousand photographers from 98 countries of the world presented their works to the international jury.

One of the best photos shows a jumping fox. Photographer Richard Peters captured this shot in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, watching a fox huntress from the window of his car.

The second place went to the work of Hannes Lochner, the photographer captured the lion peacefully "resting" against the background of the stormy sky in the Kalahari Desert. The author recalls that when he saw the lion, he hurried to get closer to the beast for a good shot. The king of beasts gazed at him reluctantly, and then went to bed again. The moment Hannes Lochner took the picture, the sky was cut by lightning, after which everything plunged into darkness again.

Among the best is a photo of a bat taken by Ofer Levy. The photographer spent a week in Parramatta Park in Wales in 40-degree heat to wait for the right moment for the bat to descend into the water in the daytime.

Perhaps one of the most extraordinary winning works is an uncomplicated photo of Eve Tucker, which shows an ordinary seagull. It is noteworthy that the picture was taken in one of the working districts of London, and the bizarre patterns on the water are nothing more than a distorted reflection of office buildings.

Photographer Anna Henly captured her best shot in the distant archipelago of Svalbard, which is located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It was there that she saw a polar bear, which was moving very carefully along the "crumbling" ice floes. Using a fisheye lens, Anna achieved a special effect: in the photo there is a miniature polar bear among ice fragments that more resemble the globe. Thus, the author tried to draw attention to the problem of glacier melting due to global warming.

But the most expressive photo belongs to our fellow countryman Sergei Gorshkov. He spent two months on the remote Wrangel Island in northeastern Russia. About a quarter of a million geese arrive here from North America every year at the end of May. Birds have constant conflicts with Arctic foxes, who strive to steal goose eggs.

Recall that the Veolia competition was founded in England in 1964, organized by the Natural History Museum and BBC Worldwide. The best wildlife photography will be on display at the London History Museum until March 2013.