Last chance to see Wildlife Photographer exhibition

Release Date:  07-Jan-2009

This weekend, January 10 -11 is the last chance to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition at Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery before it leaves the city to go continue on the rest of its national tour.

The exhibition is one of the world’s most prestigious photography exhibitions and this year includes nearly 100 stunning images of wildlife and nature taken by the world’s top amateur and professional photographers.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition - owned by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine - attracted a record-breaking 32,351 images from 82 countries this year. The exhibition showcases the winning, runner-up and commended photographs, and its showing in Bristol is part of a national and international tour.

Kate Brindley, director of Bristol’s Museums, Galleries & Archives, says: “The images in this year’s exhibition are truly stunning and show the extraordinary diversity of nature - everything from prowling snow leopards and fighting eagles, to basking orcas and melting ice caps.  You can only marvel at the skills and patience of the photographers who got such great shots.”

Visitors to the exhibition will also be able to see ‘Allotment Safari’ - a green-fingered photographic exploration of wildlife and nature on Bristol’s allotments. Local allotment holders were trained in the use of digital cameras, and tasked with taking images of the wildlife they discovered.  The resulting colourful images are fantastic and unearth an amazing variety of nature - from a bug’s eye view of a veg patch, to frogs basking in the undergrowth.

Wildlife fans might also be interested in the Museum’s Winter Lecture - Wild China - given by Phil Chapman, producer of the BBC’s ground-breaking Wild China series.  Phil will outline how Bristol's natural history unit went in search of rare creatures in the world's most populous communist superpower.

The Wild China lecture is on Wednesday, January 14, 2009, from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at the Powell Lecture Theatre, H.H Wills Physics Laboratory, Bristol University, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol. The event is free and there is no need to book – first come, first served.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Allotment Safari are at Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery until Sunday 11 January.  For full details on these exhibitions, and the Winter Lecture, see the council's website.

Author:   Helen Hewitt, tel. 922 2650

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