After months of anticipation, the contest organisers, the UK's Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine, announced the winners from 18 competition categories at a gala awards ceremony. The exhibition of the large-format winning images opened at the Natural History Museum in London on 22 October 2010 and will remain open till the 11 March 2011. It will also tour the world, stopping off in Sydney.
Sydney photographer Kent Miklenda, was awarded a Highly Commended prize for his image, Celestial Cathedral - the Aurora Borealis in the Norwegian night sky over the Lofoten Islands in the Arctic circle. Commencing his career in professional photography two years ago, Kent says his true passion takes him out of the studio. "I spent a long time on the other side of the camera, working 25 years in special effects and advertising. But then I decided I really wanted to do the things I wanted, which was travel and photography."
Capturing the aurora is a matter of being in the right place and the right time, he says. Kent was at that place. "The shot I had in my head beforehand, of how it looked post-production was actually the shot I got in camera," he says. This is just as well considering the strict rules against digital manipulation of images entered into the competition - aside from basic cropping, contrast and brightness adjustments.
Other Australian prize winners included, underwater photographer Michael AW with his Highly Commended, Manta-ray Feast, shot in the Madives; Highly Commended Ken Dyball's Lookout, of a caracal perched up a tree in Kenya's Masai Mara; and Melbourne's Kah Kit Yoong's Runner-up, Southern Swell, a shot of an early morning swell at Hanson Bay on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
