Dave Stock, deputy picture editor
Gallery: Our pick of the winners
?Dedication, resilience, courage, resourcefulness, cunning - essential survival attributes of many wild animals.? This introduction to the portfolio for the Veolia Environnement Wildlife photographer of the year 2011, by judge Joe Cornish, lists character traits that apply equally well to the photographers of the winning images as they do to their subjects.
This year?s winner is a case in point. Daniel Beltra?s image ?still life in oil? depicts eight Brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) covered in crude oil as they undergo the first stage of cleaning at a bird-rescue facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. Despite its perfect composition and almost staged look, Beltra actually shot the photograph in a brief 10-second window as volunteers helping rescue these birds briefly opened the door to move a pelican in or out.
The birds were victims of last year's Deepwater Horizon disaster, which, at its height, was leaking up to 6.4 million litres of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico and caused severe ecological damage to the area. ?I could easily see this image as iconic of the disaster,? said judging chair Mark Carwardine, introducing the winner at the awards ceremony at London?s Natural History Museum this week.
The image?s newsworthiness swung it. ?We want to see something different,? explained judge Michael Aw. ?If a fantastic image of a topic or subject has been photographed well before, then that becomes the benchmark. An image might be amazing, but if it doesn?t better the benchmark it will be disregarded?. Of Beltra?s image, Aw remarked that: ?In any other year, I?m not sure that this image would have won?.
he image formed one part of a sequence that won Beltra the coveted "wildlife photojournalist of the year" award. His beautifully executed, painterly aerial shots, captured the sheer scale of the spill. Oil and water mix in stunningly beautiful colours and abstract shapes, yet the images are unnerving, bringing home the scale of the disaster by providing a birds-eye view of the acres of oil spreading out from the Deepwater rig. A tiny boat, little more than a speck on the blighted seascape, informs the scale of Beltra?s aptly titled "Toxic Beauty".Elsewhere, technique played a part in deciding other winning images. Last years overall winner Bence M?t? returned to take the Eric Hosking Award for the forth time. The prize, awarded to photographers aged 18 to 26, showcases a portfolio of 6 images representative of the photographers work. In "pelican perspective", M?t? planned a complex setup to capture an unusual, wide angle, water level shot of Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus), catching one of the birds receiving a tasty fish into its pouch. For the shot M?t? utilised a floating pontoon and numerous flash units wired together and operated remotely.
(Image: Bence M?t?/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011)
"It was a huge buzz to find that the contraption actually worked", said M?t?, but it wasn?t without hiccups. As he explained in his acceptance speech, it was his team?s resourcefulness - one of those essential attributes highlighted by Cornish - that snatched the project from the jaws of disaster. When one of the flash units burnt out it took the technical ingenuity of M?t??s assistant, who scavenged parts from a hotel remote control to repair the damaged equipment, to rescue the shoot.
Aspiring to evolve her photography skills, the winner of the under 10s category, Hui Yu Kim, melted hearts with her pre-recorded video acceptance message (she could not make to the ceremony because of exams): "I will try harder and promise to come back better next year", she says. Her image, simple entitled Alien uses macro photography techniques to get up close with a tropical flat-faced longhorn beetle (Aegomorphus quadrigibbus), taken on a family trip to Gunung Jeri, Malaysia.
It?s dedication like Kim?s that is perhaps the essential trait that unifies all the winning photographers, and results in the collection of breathtaking photographs that comprise this year?s images.
The Veolia Environment Wildlife photographer of the year images can be seen at the Natural History Museum, London, until 11 March 2012.
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