Wildlife Photographer of the Year is an annual international wildlife photography

Wildlife photography

Wildlife photography is the act of taking photographs of wildlife.Wildlife photography is regarded as one of the more challenging forms of photography. As well as needing sound technical skills, such as being able to expose correctly, wildlife photographers generally need good field craft skills...

 competition owned by the Natural History Museum

Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...

 and BBC Wildlife

BBC Wildlife

BBC Wildlife is a British glossy, all-colour, monthly magazine about wildlife, founded by BBC Worldwide and published through the BBC Magazines Bristol division, also trading as Bristol Magazines Ltd....

. Its sponsored name is currently Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year. It was known as BG

BG Group

BG Group plc is a global oil and gas company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. It has operations in 25 countries across Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America and produces around 680,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. It has a major Liquefied Natural Gas ...

 Wildlife Photographer of the Year from 1990 to 2003, and briefly as Shell

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Kodak

Eastman Kodak

Eastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....

 Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Prudential

Prudential plc

Prudential plc is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 15 million customers across 13 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in mainland China, Hong...

 Wildlife Photographer of the Year. The first competition was held in 1964, with three categories and around 600 entries. In 2008 the competition received over 32,000 entries from 3100 photographers in 82 countries. There is an exhibition of the winning and commended images each year at the Natural History Museum, which later tours around the world. It is often cited as being one of the most prestigious photography competitions in the world.

A book of winning entries and runners-up has been published each year since 1992, with two books being published in 1994 (the first three volumes were published the year after the corresponding competitions were held). Early volumes have become quite collectable.

Winners

Overall winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year from 1984

Year	Title	Name	Image Title	Country of Nationality
2010	Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010	Bence Máté	A marvel of ants	Hungary
2009	Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009	José Luis Rodríguez (disqualified)	The storybook wolf	Spain
2008	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008	Steve Winter	Snowstorm leopard	USA
2007	Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007	Ben Osborne	Elephant creation	UK
2006	Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2006	Göran Ehlmé	Beast of the sediment	Sweden
2005	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2005	Manuel Presti	Sky chase	Italy
2004	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2004	Doug Perrine	Bronze whalers charging a baitball	USA
2003	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2003	Gerhard Schulz	Gorilla and boy	Germany
2002	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2002	Angie Scott	African elephant family watching a grey heron	Kenya
2001	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2001	Tobias Bernhard	Grey reef shark	Germany
2000	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2000	Manoj Shah	Orang-utan and baby	UK
1999	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1999	Jamie Thom	Leopard with rising moon	South Africa
1998	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1998	Manfred Danegger	Boxing hares	Germany
1997	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1997	Tapani Räsänen	Common tern fishing	Finland
1996	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1996	Jason Venus	Badger running	UK
1995	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1995	Cherry Alexander	Blue iceberg, Antarctica	UK
1994	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1994	Thomas D Mangelsen	Polar bear and arctic fox	USA
1993	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1993	Martyn Colbeck	Bull elephant dusting	UK
1992	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1992	André Bärtschi	Red and green macaws	Liechtenstein
1991	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1991	Frans Lanting Frans Lanting Frans Lanting, is a Dutch photographer specializing in wildlife photography.Lanting was born in Rotterdam and later emigrated to the United States after being educated in the Netherlands. He now lives in Santa Cruz, California and operates a studio and gallery, as well as a stock photography...	Portfolio of 10 Images	Netherlands
1990	BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1990	Wendy Shattil	Red fox cub	USA
1989	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1989	Jouni Ruuskanen	Red-throated diver	Finland
1988	Kodak Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1988	Jim Brandenburg Jim Brandenburg Jim Brandenburg is an environmentalist and nature photographer and filmmaker based near Ely, Minnesota. His career includes over 10 years as a newspaper photojournalist, over 30 years as a contract photographer for the National Geographic Society, and commissions from such groups as the United...	Gemsbok in the Namib desert, Namibia	USA
1987	Prudential Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1987	Jonathan Scott Jonathan Scott (zoologist) Jonathan Scott is an English zoologist and wildlife photographer specializing in African wildlife. He spends much of his time in the Masai Mara National Game Reserve in southwest Kenya and the Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania.He and his wife Angie, who is also a wildlife photographer,...	Wild dog immobilising wildebeest	UK
1986	Prudential Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1986	Rajesh Bedi	Himalayan black bear	India
1985	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1985	Charles Summers	Young cheetah coming to grips with its first springbok	USA
1984	Wildlife Photographer of the Year 1984	Richard Kemp and Julia Kemp	Diving goosander	UK

2009 Controversy

The overall 2009 competition winner, José Luis Rodriguez, was stripped of his award and his £10,000 prize following allegations that his picture of a wolf leaping a gate had been staged, using a captive animal to do so. He was also prohibited from entering the competition for life. It was, however, too late to remove the image from the accompanying book.

External links

• Wildlife photographer of the year (Natural History Museum website)
• Guardian slideshow