If you can’t quite hack the requisite international airfare and/or annual leave to explore the Amazon, meet polar bears, or go deep sea diving right now, there is another method for getting up close and personal with some of the world’s most incredible animals.
For the 60th year in a row, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition will arrive in Sydney on loan from London’s Natural History Museum. Taking root at the National Maritime Museum, this stunning collection of photographs will be on show in Sydney from Thursday, May 15 until Sunday, October 19.
This incredibly prestigious photography event is centred on drawing attention to the wild beauty and fragility of the natural world. This year, judges had to look at a baffling 59,228 entries from photographers of all ages and experience levels from 117 countries and territories, and were faced with the near-impossible task of whittling these down to just over 100 photo finalists.
The images that made this year’s exhibition captures mesmerising snapshots of fascinating animal behaviour and stunning secret moments in the hearts of the world’s most unreachable places.
The prestigious Grand Title this year went to Canadian Marine Conservation Photojournalist, Shane Gross, for his incredible underwater image of a community of western toad tadpoles. The award for Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year went to German photographer Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas for his up-close image Life Under Dead Wood.
Of the talented Aussie photographers featured in this year’s exhibition, three are category finalists: Jannico Kelk won the ‘Animals in their Environment’ category with his image Hope for the Ninu, Justin Gilligan won the award for ‘Oceans: The Bigger Picture’ with A Diet of Deadly Plastic (a mosaic from the 403 pieces of plastic found inside the digestive tract of a dead flesh-footed shearwater) and Matthew Smith won the ‘Underwater’ category for Under the Waterline, a snap of a curious leopard seal beneath the Antarctic ice.
So, if you are in the mood to escape reality, dive into strange and wonderful corners of the globe, and fight for a brighter future for all the miraculous living creatures and ecosystems on our planet, add the Maritime Museum to your weekend hit list.
Tickets will cost adults $35, under 15’s can come in for $25, and kids under four can enter for free. Concessions cost $30, and a family group can get in on the action for $89. Intrigued? You can book tickets here.
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