If you’re heading to London anytime soon, make sure you visit the Natural History Museum to check out the 2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
The winners of this prestigious competition – now in its 54th year – were announced last week, with Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten taking out the grand prize for his extraordinary image, ‘The Golden Couple’. It captures a pair of golden snub-nosed monkeys in China’s Qinling Mountains and is, according to chair of the judging panel, Roz Kidman Cox, “an artwork worthy of hanging in any gallery in the world.”
The prize for Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018 was awarded to 16-year-old Skye Meaker from South Africa, who captured a dreamy photo of a leopard waking from sleep in Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana.
The level of talent among young photographers in this competition is always mind-blowing – and this year one of the people to be highly commended was our very own Robert Irwin.
The 14-year-old son of Australia’s legendary crocodile hunter is a talented photographer whose favourite subject is, of course, the natural world. He captured his highly commended photograph at a remote swamp on Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. Arachnophobes, beware: it’s of a huge huntsman spider munching on a desert tree frog and is called, appropriately, ‘The Catch’.
Robert took to Instagram after he was highly commended in the 11-14 Years Old category, writing: “So very proud for my photography to be highly commended in the world’s most prestigious wildlife photography competition, ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year’ here in London. Honoured to be part of the @nhm_wpy event, amongst some of the greatest photographers of all time. Congratulations to all of the other amazing commended and winning images. Thrilled that my photo will be part of a gallery going worldwide to hopefully inspire other young people to take up photography and appreciate the natural world.”
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Four other Australian photographers were recognised at this year’s awards. In total, the competition attracted an incredible 45,000 entries from professionals and amateurs across 95 countries. Check out some of the other winning and highly commended images below.
You can see the flagship exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London before it tours across the UK and internationally to locations including Canada, Spain, the USA and Germany. In Australia the exhibition will open at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, Victoria, in February 2019. Entries are already open for the 2019 competition and is open to professionals and amateurs, so get snapping!