2011 Veolia (BBC) Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition Results Announced

[Arthur Morris]

The results of the 2011 Veolia (BBC) Environnement Wildlife Photographer and Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition were announced last night in a ceremony at the Natural History Museum in London, England. This contest is the world's most prestigious nature photography competition. The evening's hosts were zoologist, photographer and Chair of the jury, Mark Carwardine, and Tusk ambassador, Jo Wood. Those lucky enough to receive an invitation were treated to a delicious organic four course dinner in the splendour of the Central Hall before becoming the first to see the winning images. The evening was staged by Event Concept and Envy and guests were also treated to the sounds of The Organic Jam drifting through the Museum's corridors.

You can view all of the winning and honored images here (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/onlineGallery.do). Congrats to all, especially to BPN member Peter Delaney for winning the Nature in Black and White category with his stunning image "Big Foot" and to Doug Brown's friend BPN member Greg Basco for his highly commended "Chachalacascape" in the same category.

I was lucky enough to receive an invitation but could not attend. My image "Snow and geese" was highly commended in the Creative Visions of Nature category. It was my 7th BBC-honored image. All that I will say here is that each of you should spend an hour or two enjoying the winning and honored images. I will have lots more (all wonderful) to say about the winning images on my blog (http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/) tonight. I had lots more to say about the contest results in tonight's post here (http://www.birdsasart-blog.com/2011/10/20/2011-veolia-bbc-environnement-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-competition-results-announced/).

I like my title much better: "Salt and Pepper Snowstorm."

Do see the link to the BIRDS AS ART 1st International Bird Photography Competition in my signature below the image.











(http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/onlineGallery.do)

[Steve Kaluski]

Artie, the exhibition is stunning and the lightboxes portray the images extremely well, with great depth, detail & colour, but the location of the whole show is staggering when you look up towards the vaulted ceiling of the Natural History Museum.

It didn't click until going back into the online gallery and saw Gregs image. Peter and I were studying it last night at a preview and Greg's image was incredibly delicate which almost had a Chinese feel along the lines of what you might see on fine china, well that was our take :bg3: a great image.

Some fantastic work, inspiring in all disciplines and a huge variety of both subject and locations. The 'bar' has certainly been raised this year!

cheers
Steve

[denise ippolito]

Artie, Thanks for posting this. All of the winning images are well deserved. Special congrats to Peter Delaney! Artie, the minute I saw your "Salt and Pepper Snowstorm" image I loved it, I'm glad it won such a great honor. Greg Basco, that is just a beautiful graphic image and very well deserving -Congrats! I am also thrilled that Jan Van der Greef won a runner -up -I saw his winning image at your Bosque workshop last fall and fell in love with it. I'm glad he entered it again! Congratulations again to all.:S3:

[Humberto Ramos]

Congratulations Artie, this is an amazing vision, even better in big.
It look like an old Greek painting in a wall.

[Arthur Morris]

Lady D and Humberto. Thanks for your kind words.

[Don Lacy]

Congrats Artie I great abstract image that reveals itself when studied.

[Sid Garige]

Well deserved honor Artie. Congratulations.

[arash_hazeghi]

mazel tov

[Greg Basco]

Arthur, great to see your image bigger here. It looks just great -- congrats! And thanks very much for the mention.

Denise, thanks very much for your kind words on the image. I really appreciate it.

Steve, are you calling me delicate? :S3: Seriously, thanks very much for your take. That kind of oriental feel was exactly what I was going for so I'm glad it came through.

Cheers,
Greg

[Arthur Morris]

YAW Greg. Your honored image is a stunner. Like mine, the bigger you see it the better it will look.

[Greg Basco]

Thanks very much, Arthur. I really appreciate those kind words from a photographer of your stature. I would love to see the big print exhibit of all the images -- must be very cool.

Cheers,
Greg

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. I went to the ceremony once with my first honored image, a runner-up in Composition and Form: Blizzard in Blue. In those days they sent you a plane ticket for category winners and runners-up. It was a blast. But I vowed never to go back till I won a category. Have had six or seven more but never a category winner. One of my students won the whole shebang a few years back. Senility prevents me from remembering his name at the moment but his girlfriend is named Carla! It was a starling flock/peregrine image.

[Grace Scalzo]

Congrats, Artie. I'm looking forward to spending some time looking at these images this weekend. It's a huge honor and well deserved.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Congratulations to all the winners! All well deserved....:S3:

[Brendan Dozier]

Congratulations to all of you, beautiful work!

[Roger Clark]

Congratulations. Very compelling images. Well done.

Roger

[Ofer Levy]

Congratulations to all!

[Doug Brown]

Congrats to all of our BPN honorees!

[Rachel Hollander]

Congrats to all!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Certainly can appreciate the image posted bigger here, Artie! Congrats again, and to Peter and Greg. I would love to see Greg's larger as well (if you'll post it, Greg??).
I also couldn't attend last year unfortunately due to personal circumstances...I will certainly try to make a plan if ever I have the honour of being chosen again...:S3:

[Arthur Morris]

Certainly can appreciate the image posted bigger here, Artie! Congrats again, and to Peter and Greg. I would love to see Greg's larger as well (if you'll post it, Greg??).
I also couldn't attend last year unfortunately due to personal circumstances...I will certainly try to make a plan if ever I have the honour of being chosen again...:S3:

Morkel, I did not realize that you had an image honored last year. I'd love to see you post the image here and let us know the category! :e3 :e3 :e3 with chagrin, artie :S3:

[Morkel Erasmus]

Morkel, I did not realize that you had an image honored last year. I'd love to see you post the image here and let us know the category! with chagrin, artie

Perhaps you just forgot momentarily, Artie...as you posted the thread here (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/73814-BBC-Don-t-Forget-Morkel%21) :w3.
It was in "Nature in Black and White"...I don't want to hog the 2011 thread with 2010's archives :e3. It was a Wildebeest standing on a dune with streaky clouds behind it, here (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/photo.do?photo=2647&category=49&group=1).

[Arthur Morris]

Perhaps you just forgot momentarily, Artie...as you posted the thread here (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/73814-BBC-Don-t-Forget-Morkel!) :w3. It was in "Nature in Black and White"...I don't want to hog the 2011 thread with 2010's archives :e3. It was a Wildebeest standing on a dune with streaky clouds behind it, here (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/photo.do?photo=2647&category=49&group=1).

Or perhaps I am getting senile. Or am suffering from CRS... Man oh man, I love that one. Did you ever post it on BPN? I would love to see it larger. What is that amazing background? Ah, streaky clouds. Amazing. And congrats again.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Man oh man, I love that one. Did you ever post it on BPN? I would love to see it larger.

Thanks again. I told you I didn't want to 'hog the thread', but since you asked :t3...yes I did post it on BPN long before entering it into the competition. Here (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/46226-Loneliness)is the thread.
The image uploaded to that thread is this one:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=50151&stc=1&d=1253963951

But this is only half the story...based on some valuable feedback gained from posting the image here on BPN as well as elsewhere, I reprocessed from scratch when entering it into the WPOTY competition.
Here is an exact JPG rendering of the final file entered. You will see it is much more refined and the sky has been done justice by working the details from the RAW file.

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/297/d/b/db91a527159c72cabb7721c860481343-d31e94d.jpg

[Arthur Morris]

Killer as you know. I just wanted a link to the post but am glad that you posted it here. Maybe Peter and Greg will post theirs. Quite a BPN haul on the B&W front :S3:.

[Doug Brown]

Morkel wasn't able to attend the award ceremony last year, so I sent him this photo from the ceremony of me giving his image a thumbs-up. The next best thing to being there!

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[Hilary Hann]

I loved all the BPN honored images, artistic, well executed and lets the viewer have an opportunity to think and feel. Morkel, loved seeing the two versions of your image side by side. Ah well, one day ... :S3:

Now I have to look more closely at some of the others.

[Steve Kaluski]

Cool Doug. :cheers::cheers:

[Greg Basco]

Hey, Morkel. That looked great. It was a treat to see that image again!

Arthur, here's the image, and thanks very much for the invitation to post it on this thread. I had to drop the quality down to 78 to get the file size down but hopefully it looks OK. I heard from a few friends that said it looked great at the exhibit and in the official book, so I guess in the end it's the printing that matters. I think the sky might be a touch blown:S3:

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I did a blog post on my site on how I took the image. You can also see a shot of the RAW file in the post. It's here: http://www.deepgreenphotography.com/2011/10/wpoty-prize/

Cheers,
Greg

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Greg. It looks fine. And it is a wonderfully designed image. If anything, a bit more contrasty than I had expected--but that is what you would figure with a JPEG.

[Greg Basco]

Arthur, I took a look at the image, and you are right. It's much more contrasty than the version on my blog and the version on the WPOTY site. I had worked up a few different versions with this image, and I uploaded a variation of the wrong version here. I have replaced that with a file more representative of how I wanted it to look and to what was presented at WPOTY. It also looks a lot more like the tones in the RAW file :S3: Thanks for catching that.

Cheers,
Greg

[Arthur Morris]

You are welcome. That is a much softer look now. And much better.

[Marina Scarr]

Huge congratulations, Artie, and to all other honored photographers now and then. Artie, I liked your name for the picture better too.

[Hilary Hann]

Thanks for the link Greg, the image shown larger is spectacular.

[Humberto Ramos]

Greg, Its amazingly beautiful, I love all three images of BPN member in WPOTY...

[Morkel Erasmus]

Greg, that surely is a nice piece of work! Such fine detail and does indeed look like "fine China porcelain"...:bg3:
Congrats again...

(and thanks for posting that snapshot, Doug!)

[Greg Basco]

Thanks, Hilary, Morkel, and Humberto. I'm so glad you like the image!

Cheers,
Greg

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Greg, sorry not had time to reply to your reply regarding the image.

I do think the word 'delicate' reflects well the image and when flanked either side by more 'graphic', (ie Wims charging Rhino is to the right, can't remember what is to the left) the image certainly has standout because of it's uniqueness, look and feel. It is also rather refreshing when you see the image displayed in the line. Looking at the book now, the image is not as contrasty as your posted image Greg and the BKG is not a pure white, sadly I cannot recollect how it is portrayed in the lightbox.

Artie, the heavy fall of snow really sets the scene amongst the chaos of the flock taking off and I like the defuse look & feel, allowing you the viewer, to interpret the image. An image that requires you to stand back a good 6ft+ to actually appreciate it and take in ALL that is going on within the shot.

I would strong advise anyone who has the opportunity to visit the showcase roadshow when it sets off to do so and to take your time!

Congratulations once again guys.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Huge congrats to all those who were honored. great images, of course. very unique.