Quickly and quietly, so as not to disturb his subject, wildlife photographer Joe Bunni lowers himself from a small boat into the freezing waters of Repulse Bay, Canada. Attached by a rope, with only a mask and fins, he starts taking pictures. After three days of searching and countless hours of waiting in the cold, Bunni can’t believe his luck. The animal turns, catching its reflection in Bunni’s camera and suddenly starts swimming towards him.  A few seconds later a large polar bear swats the dome of his camera.  Startling himself, the bear quickly swims away leaving Bunni with a prize-winning photograph.

Bunni’s experience illustrates the courage, resilience and dedication of many photographers who seek to capture exceptional images such as those found in this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. The annual competition- owned by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine- is one of the most prestigious nature photography contests in the world.  Amateurs and professionals of all ages, submit their work to one of 17 categories spanning from mammal behavior to the celebration of plants and fungi.  This year the competition received 41,000 submissions from 95 countries. An international judging panel, which included zoologists, award-winning photographers and magazine editors, shortlisted the top 100 submissions currently exhibited at the Natural History Museum.

The competition is one of the Museum’s most successful and long-running exhibitions. Last year it attracted 161,000 visitors from around the world. On Saturday, I was one of the hundreds who visited.  The room was fairly large with subdued lighting and a maze of corridors.  The darkness accentuated the bright colours coming from large back-lit photographs hanging from the walls. In spite of regulating numbers there were four to six people clustered around each photograph. People were ducking, craning their necks, shifting their bodies and politely entering the ‘personal’ space of strangers for a chance to look at a landscape devoid of people.

These voyeuristic encounters with pristine wilderness were complimented by close-ups of sea turtles mating, cheetahs playing in a tree, and a herd of muskoxen charging in the snow. Each photograph went beyond artistic representation to tell a story of the biology, character and livelihood of the animal. They were the culmination of months, or in some cases years of knowledge – of the behavior and character of the subject, its migration, mating and eating patterns, as well as technical knowledge of framing, lenses and light. That knowledge, combined with luck, creativity and courage created these exceptional visual stories.

The exhibition had many thought-provoking images but there were three that made lasting impressions on me: ‘Polar Power’ by Joe Bunni, ‘The Assassin’ by Steve Mills and ‘Still Life in Oil’ by Daniel Beltrá. 

Joe Bunni, is a French dentist who started taking wildlife photographs over 15 years ago while learning to scuba dive. His winning photograph is an amazing split-level image that shows a polar bear swimming-his entire body submerged under water with his head floating above the surface. The image is not only aesthetically pleasing, it communicates “the plight of polar bears struggling to stay afloat in a time of receding sea ice” (Micheal Law, Judge).

 In Steve Mills photograph ‘The Assassin’ we see the balance of predator and prey near his house in Whitby, North Yorkshire. The photograph is a dramatic moment where a merlin, a small species of falcon, is in the process of killing a snipe. The merlin is looking at the photographer as it clinches the snipe’s arched neck. “The attack was so unexpected, so dramatic and so close” said Steve, “that I was overjoyed to find I had captured the moment, but I also felt great sympathy for the loser”.  

The Assasin and Polar Power, are two of the most popular photographs for visitors. Interestingly, ‘Still Life in Oil’, the overall winning photograph of the competition, is not. Unlike the majority of others, Daniel Beltrá’s image does not capture birds in their natural environment. Rather, his photograph shows eight brown pelicans huddled together at the edge of a box, covered in crude oil. The oil has gathered in small pools around them and has stained the lining sheets they stand on. The different colors of browns, whites and blacks, and the birds poised staring at the lense, makes the image look like a still-life painting. The photograph was taken quickly while volunteers were helping to clean the birds at a temporary rescue facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana.

‘Still Life in Oil’ was one of six images telling the story of the BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 which saw millions of liters of oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico. Beltrá shows aerial photographs of tankers painting paths in the orange, reds and browns of the crude surface oil.  Beltrá spent months photographing the oil spill. He wanted to show the magnitude of the problem and the scale of cleaning up such a disaster.  For Beltrá, producing aesthetically appealing images out of environmental catastrophes is a way of promoting awareness- “ a route to understanding that doesn’t depend on shock [that] helps get the message to a wider audience.”

The overall exhibition conveyed a romantic relationship with nature- we were meant to be inspired and awed by wilderness. Yet, despite some strong political images, there was no call to act or to reflect on how our actions contribute to these diminishing species and habitats.  The exhibition was sponsored by a multi-billion dollar waste management company, but there was no direct link demonstrating how we as urban dwellers and global consumers could help preserve these natural wonders.

Many photographers such as Beltrá, Mills and Bunni, promote public awareness of wildlife conservation not only through their photography but also through their work- setting up nature organisations, assisting in political campaigns and influencing policy makers. The wilderness inspires them to act- hopefully their photography will inspire us as well.