Young Wildlife Photographer Captures All the Honors

With so many very talented nature photographers to choose from, it is a difficult job to decide on whose photographs are really the best. Like this photograph of a white-crowned parrot or plum-crowned Pionus (Pionus senilis) at Macaw Mountain Bird Park and Nature Reserve, Copan, Honduras, taken by by Lauri Väin

With so many very talented nature photographers to choose from, it is a difficult job to decide whose photographs are really the best. Like this photograph of a white-crowned parrot or plum-crowned Pionus (Pionus senilis) at Macaw Mountain Bird Park and Nature Reserve, Copan, Honduras, taken by by Lauri Väin

A British Columbia photographer has won the prestigious Eric Hosking Portfolio Award. He is the first North American photographer to win this prestigious award. He has also been honoured as one of the Wildlife Photographers of the Year whose work is being shown at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the Royal British Columbia Museum. This amazing photographer, Connor Stefanison, is only 22!

Eric Hosking Portfolio Award

This award is named after Eric Hosking (1909-1991), an English photographer who is noted for his photographs of birds. Hosking pioneered several techniques particularly for bird photography, publishing books documenting his photographs and studies.

In keeping with his lifetime goal of achieving excellence in photographing nature, this award is open to aspiring young wildlife photographers between the ages of 18 and 26. The photographers submit portfolios between 6 and 10 images for the jury to select a single portfolio with the strongest 6 images. With this award, which is co-owned by BBC Worldwide and the Natural History Museum (London), comes the prestigious title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Wildlife Photographer of The Year: History

For the past 49 years, the Natural History Museum (NHM) in the United Kingdom partnered with BBC Wildlife has sponsored an annual international wildlife photography competition to encourage and promote excellence in recognizing the innate beauties of nature. The ultimate goal of this competition is to capture the power of photography and to use it as a tool to promote discovery, understanding and, hopefully, a responsible enjoyment of the natural world.

The competition has undergone various name changes. From 1990 to 2003, it was known as BG (BG Group, a British multinational oil and gas company) Wildlife Photographer of the Year. It has also been known briefly as Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Kodak Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Prudential Wildlife Photographer of the Year, depending on its financial sponsor at the time. It is currently known by its sponsored name, Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

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While Connor Stefanison is one of the 2013 winners of this award, previous winners include the Canadian, Paul Nicklen, whose image Bubble-jetting Emperors caught the judges’ eyes in 2012 and the Spanish photographer, Daniel Beltrá for his photograph, Still life in oil.

This prestigious international competition has grown considerably in popularity since 1964 when, with only three categories for entries, there were 600 contestants from around the world. In 2008, there were 32,000 entries, photographs taken by 3100 photographers from 82 different countries.

The winning entries and the honorable mentions are featured in an exhibition at the Natural History Museum before touring the world. This year the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, will host the premiere North American exhibit of the 2013 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Promoting Pride and Respect In Nature

“In our technology-driven world, wildlife photography can bring us face to face with the natural world and inspire us to pay more attention to the environment,” says the Royal Ontario Museum’s managing director of biodiversity, Dave Ireland, according to CBS News. “Wildlife photography has an amazing ability to inspire people to love nature.”

We are stewards of this earth and photography, aspiring photographers of nature, inspire us to take better care of the natural world around us.