Wilderness Landscapes
About the Photos
This year’s awards were dominated by avian photography which featured in the overall, portfolio, animal behaviour, threatened species, animal portrait and our impact sections. Even the winning photo in the wilderness landscape category included a bird. The list of prize winning images can be found here. Bigger versions can be accessed by clicking the photos.
The overall winner, “Gentoo Penguin and Elephant Seal Face-off” by Glenn Ehmke from Victoria depicted an almost comical exchange between the two protagonists. It was a great moment, well captured and no doubt has a lot of human appeal with those interesting facial expressions.
Another Victorian bird specialist, Chris Tzaros, in addition to winning the portfolio prize, also took home first prizes in animal behaviour, animal portrait and threatened species. His portrait of a splendid fairy wren was in my opinion the highlight of his winning portfolio.
Other highlights from the exhibition included Sharon Wormleaton’s “Numbat”, runner-up in the threatened species category and Tony Hopkin’s shiny portrait of a mosquito in a rock pool and Andy Trowbridge’s peaceful “Geese in Mist”, runner-up in black and white. Justin Gilligan’s “Whirlpool”, winner of the interpretive section, was a stunning result from using a slow shutter speed, a spinning camera and strobes. Scott Portelli’s second prize in “Our Impact” tells the sad story of a Blue Marlin, mutilated by the practice of tag and release in sport fishing. Also on a sad note was Wolfgang Glowacki’s aerial view of the Styx Valley in Tasmania shrouded in morning mist penetrated by golden light. It was the winner of the “Botanical Subject” section. The forest shown is zoned for logging this year. Some of the highly commended photos in this section were gorgeous and included Chris Ross’ “Fringed Lillies” and Ted Mead’s “Winter Cloak”, a snow covered forest of Pandani and Snow Gums.
I’ll say a little more about the wilderness landscapes since it is my main area of knowledge. Ten images were selected for the collection, all part of the exhibition. Winner was the evocative and contemplative “Morning Mist” by Denis Glennon. Three images were from Antarctica and the remainder from Australia. Stand outs for me were Rob Gubiani’s stormy seascape from South Cape in Tasmania and Andrew Halsall’s Antarctic Rainbow.
While the overall standard of the exhibition was better than last year, the wilderness landscape and underwater subject categories were not as strikingly original as the previous year. The most encouraging aspect about the ANZANG competition was how the photographers’ sensitivity and love of the natural world were communicated through their photography.