16 Inspiring Wildlife Photos in the WPY 2020 Contest

The prestigious annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition put on by London’s Natural History Museum has released a collection of Highly Commended entries submitted to this year’s contest.

While the grand prize and category winners will be announced on October 13th, the Highly Commended photos released are an inspiring look at the quality level of this year’s contest, which saw over 49,000 entries from photographers representing over 25 nationalities.

“Wind birds” © Alessandra Meniconzi, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“The forest born of fire” © Andrea Pozzi, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Treetop douc” © Arshdeep Singh, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Amazon burning” © Charlie Hamilton James – Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Head start” © Dhiritiman Mukherjee, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Paired-up puffins” © Evie Easterbrook, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“World of tar” © Garth Lenz, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Peeking possums” © Gary Meredith, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“The perfect catch” © Hannah Vijayan, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“The spider’s supper” © Jaime Culebras, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Eye of the drought” © Jose Fragoso, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“The night shift” © Laurent Ballesta, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Surprise!” © Makoto Ando, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“A risky business” © Quentin Martinez, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Memorial to the albatrosses” © Thomas P Peschak, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

“Several of my favorite images from the competition – the ones that I can look at again and again – are among the commended pictures,” says Roz Kidman Cox, Chair of the judging panel. “But then all the commended images are effectively winners, being among the top 100 awarded by the jury out of more than 49,000.

“[W]hat especially stands out are the images from the young photographers – the next generation of image-makers passionate about the natural world.”

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Image credits: Header photo © Matthew Maran, Wildlife Photographer of the Year