'Highly Commended' Images from the 2020 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest

Photos

This week, the museum released a sneak peek of entries, showcasing some of the world's best nature photography and photojournalism taken by both amateur and professional photographers alike.

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A brown bear pulls a salmon from the shallows of a river in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. The huge park contains Pacific coastline, mountains, lakes, rivers and an estimated 2,200 brown bears. In spring, when bears emerge from hibernation in their mountain dens, many of them head down to feed on sedges in open meadows and forage for clams on the mudflats. Then they feast on the vast numbers of nutrient-rich sockeye salmon that start arriving, gathering in the estuaries before heading upstream to spawn. Here, the bear has caught a sockeye still in its ocean form, before it has developed its reproductive red color and pronounced jaws. The presence of the salmon through until autumn ensures the bears’ survival through the winter. (Hannah Vijayan/2020 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Now in its 56th year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest will, for the first time, be hosted virtually. Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. This year attracted nearly 50,000 entries.

This week, the museum released a sneak peek of entries, showcasing some of the world's best nature photography and photojournalism taken by both amateur and professional photographers alike.

Among the recently revealed "Highly Commended" images is a photo snapped by 13-year-old Arshdeep Singh. Singh captured an image of a douc, a critically endangered primate, while accompanying his father on a business trip in Vietnam.

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Many images feature rare and endangered animals, but some of the most striking images show human impact on the environment, such as Charlie Hamilton James' image of a lone tree surrounded by the flames of an aggressive forest fire in the Amazon. Likewise, Garth Lenz's aerial photo shows the vast expanse of Alberta's Mildred Lake Tar Mine, which was once a boreal forest.

The winners will be announced in a virtual awards ceremony streaming from London's Natural History Museum on Tuesday, Oct. 13, judged by a panel of industry experts judging by each image's creativity, originality and technique.

Click through the slideshow above to view some of this year's entries deemed "Highly Commended."

This week, the museum released a sneak peek of entries, showcasing some of the world's best nature photography and photojournalism taken by both amateur and professional photographers alike.

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