WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR PORTFOLIO 29

A screaming crab-eating macaque going cheap at Spanish market, a Kemp's ridley sea turtle on an Alabama beach attached to a discarded beach chair by the neck, a young male lion poisoned in Kenya's Masai Mara. Wildlife Photography has surged in importance as our environment becomes more threatening and the lives of thousands of species are endangered. These 100 glorious photos have been selected from 48,130 entries in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2019, and every one is a small masterpiece. The entries are judged blind so that an amateur photographer could scoop a prize, but in fact the winners are usually veterans with long experience and expertise. This reflects that fact that behind a good wildlife picture there are often months of preparation and hours or even weeks of patient waiting for the subject to appear in the desired context. Animal behaviour came to the foreground in this competition, and there was also an increase in entries from distant regions such as Mongolia, Tajikistan and China, possibly reflecting increase in access to equipment. The grand-title winner is Yongqing Bao, a Tibetan from China, whose image of a young marmot in the moment of realising that a fox was about to pounce is a haunting reminder that these photos reflect the savagery of nature. The portfolio award went to Stefan Christmann of Germany with his elegant and rather touching image of emperor penguins mating in an icy landscape. A blank sheet of snow also dominates the winning image for a young photographer's portfolio: Jérémie Villet of France got frostbite while recording two male Dall's sheep huddling together for warmth, having started out in territorial combat. Other striking images include bright orange algae weaving a tapestry on a Monterey cypress tree, and a large bull hippo snatching a calf from its mother with a view to killing it, probably in order to relieve overcrowding. The cover image of a puma attacking a guanaco in Patagonia had a happier ending with the escape of the prey. A Weddell seal, a juvenile jackfish travelling inside a jellyfish, and a garden of eels in the Philippines are some of the stunning shots of sealife. 160pp, over 100 large colour images on glossy paper, biographies of photographers and scenario descriptions of all the entries. 25.5cm square.
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