For anyone already looking forward to the visual delights of the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2014 exhibition, there’s a chance to get involved in the decision making process for what will go on show thanks to the Natural History Museum’s new People’s Choice Award. The global online vote is open to the public, so if you want to add your voice to the collective rational for which pic the award should feature, now’s your opportunity.
The new element to the annual photography prize sees 50 carefully selected images, chosen by the jury from more than 41,000 entries from almost 100 countries, going into the pot of potential winners and it’s up to us to decide which one will be the winner. That may sound like a pretty easy job for us, but if we’re honest it’s a pretty tough decision picking out a winner from the first few images in the voting gallery, let alone the full 50 shots.
It’s a very wide mix of different types of photographed, showing nature in all it’s glory, and if we’re honest, we could easily have been fooled into thinking that all of the 50 would be making it into the exhibition, not just 1 of them. There’s everything from gulls sheltering on snow battered cliffs and penguins on the beach to chimps on a clothes line and a mother cheetah suckling her young in the driving rain.
Other favourites of ours include Justin Black’s Apex Predators, which is a very impressive image of a jaguar attacking an alligator, Karren Lunney’s Dante’s Inferno, featuring a herd of wild eyed wildebeest crossing a river, and Carston Braun’s Yellow Necked Mouse with titular rodent leaping across rocks over water with a little nut in its mouth. If the rest of the 2014 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year exhibition images are as good as the contenders for the People’s Choice Award then it should be another good year for the display.
The voting for the award is open to the public now and you can see all of the fifty entrants, as well as lay down your own vote at the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year website. It’s got a cool gallery function, so you can navigate through the big five oh pretty easily in full screen mode, to give you a chance to take in all the wonder.
The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be announced at the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year awards evening, before going on to feature in the exhibition itself at the Natural History Museum, as well as on its UK tour and international tour. The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2014 exhibition goes on display at the Natural History Museum in London on 24 October, so get yourself set for some sparkling wildlife photography to brighten up the dull clouds over London this winter.
