Staffan Widstrand now tenfold prizewinner in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Yesterday, photographer Staffan Widstrand, of Jarfalla, Sweden, was awarded yet another First prize in this world famous wildlife photography competition. This was Widstrands 10:th awarded image in the competition since 1996, and the prize was delivered at a gala ceremony at The Natural History Museum in London. Among over 17 000 images taken by 1 500 photographers in 57 countries, Widstrands image was chosen as the Winner in the category Wild Places. A category where he had an awarded image also last year. The competition is organized by the BBC Wildlife Magazine together with the Natural History Museum.
The winning image shows a midwinter mountain scenery from the Stora Sjofallet National Park, in the Laponia World Heritage Area, in Lapland, Sweden. In the picture one can see how the year´s first rays from the sun touches over one of the crags in the mountain massif, to create a rainbow in a cloud of ice fog at lower elevation, in spite of a bitterly cold temperature of some minus 25 degrees C.
– It is the first and only time I´ve ever seen a rainbow in the middle of winter. A few minutes later it was gone, describes Staffan Widstrand.
And the ice fog rainbow was new also to Lennart Pittja, the Saami reindeer herdsman whose outfitting company Pathfinder Lapland organized the wilderness reindeer-sledge tour that Widstrand was there to cover.
Widstrands work in Lapland is part of a three-year project of his, with the aim to cover Sweden as the high-quality ecotourism destination it is.
Staffan Widstrand has also recently been invited to join the so far 40 members of the International League of Conservation Photographers. The League was launched at the 8th World Wilderness Congress in Anchorage, Alaska last week and is supported by, amongst others, National Geographic Society, WWF International, Conservation International, and the industrial giant Cemex. The founding members include Art Wolfe, Joel Sartore, Kevin Schaefer, Tui de Roy, Pete Oxford, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Connie Bransilver, Karl Amman, Patricio Robles Gil, Chris Rainier, Gary Braasch, Niall Benvie, Phil Borges, Christian Ziegler and Florian Schultz. The ILCP is an organization for photographers with a world reputation, who through their work are also dedicated to conservation.
An Exhibition with all the prizewinning images in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2005, will be opened on Saturday, October 22 at The Natural History Museum in London, and be open until April 23, 2006.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Staffan Widstrand, +46-70-657 33 24, photo@staffanwidstrand.se
Mairi Allan, Press officer BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition,
+44-20-7942 51 56, wildpress@nhm.ac.uk