BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit at the Detroit Zoo

Winter is my favorite time of year to visit the Detroit Zoo and take photographs.

Winter also seems to be a favorite with competition judges for the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, who named Steven Winter the winner of this year’s top title and cash prize.

Check out Winter’s work at the Detroit Zoo as the zoo plays host to the North American debut of the stunning wildlife photos named as winners of the annual photography competition sponsored by London’s Natural Museum of History and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Winter, a photographer for the United States’ National Geographic Magazine, won the judge’s approval with a striking nighttime shot of a snow leopard prowling through a snowy winter evening.

The exhibit features Winter’s beautiful “Snowstorm Leopard”, as well as 82 other inspiring shots by photographic winners from a variety of adult, youth and special award categories.

Stops at the Detroit Zoo and the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, Canada constitute the entire North American leg of this tour, which features numerous stops in Europe. So, we’re incredibly fortunate to have this exhibit at our zoo here in Detroit, where we began hosting it five years ago.

The show, established 40 years ago, drew 32,351 entries for the 2008 competition. The exhibit showcases the 83 winning images taken by 72 photographers from 28 countries.

We’ve viewed the shows a couple of times in the past, and I can say the illuminated, large-format images featured in the exhibition are breathtakingly beautiful. Strolling through the zoo’s softly-lit Ford Education Center, the back-lit wildlife images seem ready to leap from the walls and prowl the zoo grounds.

Captions detailing photographers’ stories of capturing their shots or explaining the significance of wildlife’s place in our world accompany each photograph. We easily spend a couple of hours at the exhibit, lingering before each beautiful image and wondering how to impart even a small part of the soul and beauty of those photographs in our own humble attempts to capture such fleeting moments of wild beauty.

Take a little of the magic home with you by purchasing the hardcover photo portfolio published by BBC Books. The books include each stunning image in full color with the photographers’ notes about capturing the image and the photographic equipment used to take the images. If the zoo gift shop doesn’t have the book when you visit, you can order it through your local book store or online. This year’s 160-page “Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Portfolio 18” costs $45 (U.S.) and has an April 1, 2009 publication date.

The exhibit runs at the Detroit Zoo until April 26, 2009 and is free with regular admission to the zoo.

Check out my related posts about taking winter photos at the Detroit Zoo:

Photo Friday at the Detroit Zoo

Detroit’s Arctic Ring of Life

© Dominique King 2009

Comments

[Rachel Burton]

That snow leopard photo is breathtaking! I was already inspired to check out the zoo after your Arctic Ring post, but I definitely want to see the photography exhibit!

[Steve Davis]

I have seen his work in National Geographic and other books. He obviously dedicated to have gotten these fantastic shots of such an elusive animal.

Steve

[Dominique King]

Rachel-The exhibit is definitely worth seeing. Displaying the photos as large transparencies really makes them appear particularly luminous and striking. The books and the photos I found online are stunning, but nothing really compares to seeing this show in person.

Steve-Winter does beautiful work, and I'm sure the rest of the photos in this show are of similarly high quality (they always are). We're planning to go see this year's show in the next week or so.
One of the nice things about this show is that the photographers often share the stories of how they got these shots, and what equipment they used. Not that I could ever hope to replicate their results!