Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2016: Vertiginous view of orangutan’s climb wins
This year's winner was taken on a GoPro
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Your support makes all the difference.The National History Museum has revealed its Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners, encompassing dramatic photographs of leopards, parakeets and pangolins.
American Tim Laman was the overall winner, thanks to his orangutan photo which didn’t require fancy equipment and lenses (it was taken on a GoPro) but did require three days of climbing.
“It’s a difficult-to-achieve shot,” commented chair of judges, Lewis Blackwell. “This is very often what wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year: a picture that has a high degree of technical difficulty, but one that also has something to say; and Tim’s image certainly has that as well.”
There was an emphasis on pictures that showed the threat to wildlife around the world, including Paul Hilton's shocking ‘The Pangolin Pit,’ which won the Wildlife Photojournalist Award: Single image category and depicted a seizure of 4,000 frozen pangolins destined for illegal shipping in Sumatra.
2016’s junior award went to 16-year-old Gideon Knight from Kent.
“It’s not an unfamiliar subject, but it’s got a freshness to it and a very pleasant aesthetic,” Mr Blackwell told BBC News of his photo of a crow in London’s Valentines Park.
“I don’t know whether Gideon has been studying his art history but he’s got a feel for composition and artistic reference, which is terrific in someone so young.”
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