British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1994

by Brian Pitkin

Reproduced from in focus 53 (November 1994)

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has been organised annually since 1984 by BBC Wildlife Magazine in conjunction with The Natural History Museum and for the last five years has been sponsored by British Gas.
The competition, which aims to gather together the very best wildlife photographs, is now the largest and most prestigious event of its kind in the world. This year the competition attracted more than 12,000 entries from 50 countries competing for more than £30,000 in prizes.

Among the 16 categories there is one catering explicitly for underwater photographs and two other categories included underwater images amongst the winners.

British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition organised by BBC WILDLIFE Magazine and The Natural History Museum

Runner-up was NORBERT WU from the U.S.A. with a wide-angle shot of hammerhead sharks passing overhead. Norbert took his wide-angle shot at about 100 feet over an undersea pinnacle off Cocos Island, west of Costa Rica, where the hammerheads gather possibly to mate or to be attended by cleaner fish. The camera used was a Nikon f4 with an 18 mm lens, in underwater housing exposed for 1/125 sec @ f8 on Kodak Lumiere 100.

NORBERT WU's arrow crab; JORGEN FREUND from Germany's bottle-nosed dolphins; KELVIN AITKEN's humpback whale calf; American photographer/cinematographer HOWARD HALL's separate photographs of a sperm whale and spiny lobsters migrating; and MIKE JOHNSON's commensal fish and salp were all highly commended.

BSoUP member ALAN JAMES from Bristol won the "British Wildlife" category for his double composition of a male great-crested newt. Alan planned and shot the photograph exposing some dozen rolls of film. The newt was photographed with a Nikonos V with 28 mm lens and supplementary close-up lens using two strobes at 1/90 sec @ f16/22 and the background with a Nikonos 15 mm lens at 1/90 sec @ f16/22 on Ektachrome 50.

Winner of the "Animal Behaviour: All other animals" category was FRANKLIN VIOLA from the U.S.A. with a tube sponge spawning. The Caribbean tube sponges featured in Franklin's photograph spawn once a year synchronously. Each sponge produces two-metre long strands of mucus carrying a myriad of golden eggs. The mucus helps keep the eggs together, increasing the likelihood of them all being fertilised. The camera used was a Nikon f4 with a 55 mm macro lens, in underwater housing, with two strobes exposed for 1/90 sec @ fl6 on Kodachrome 25.

British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition organised by BBC WILDLIFE Magazine and The Natural History Museum

HAL BERAL from the U.S.A. won the "Reptiles at Risk" category with a photograph of a green turtle. Hal's photograph was taken at about 3 metres in the sea off Kauai, Hawaii. Hal used a Nikonos V with a 15 mm lens and a single strobe on Fujichrome film.

All the winning and commended images are on show as back-lit display transparencies at the Natural History Museum, London until 26 February, 1995 (phone 071938 9123 for admission times and charges). Another 84 commended images are shown in an audio-visual presentation. The prints go on tour to venues throughout the U.K. until mid-1996 (phone the Competition Office on 071938 8714 for details) and to Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and the U.S.A.

Fountain Press Ltd have published a portfolio of the outstanding winning and commended entries from the 1994 competition (phone Beth Macdougall or Glynda Gabriel at MGA on 071 925 0210 or 071925 0177 for details).

Wildlife Photographer of the Year