This morning I finally managed to get to the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011 exhibition at the Natural History Museum. It is well worth the trip to see some stunning photographs but you will have to be quick as the exhibition only runs until 11th March 2012.

For once, I finally agree with the judges decision on the winner, Daniel Beltra from Spain for “Still life in oil”. This image is an excellent portrait of pelicans covered in crude oil as the result of the BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010. This image is one of six images in the portfolio that also won Daniel the Wildlife Photojournalist Award for 2011.

There were two interesting things that I noted looking round the exhibits; (i) only one photograph was not taken with Canon or Nikon camera and (ii) only one image was captured on film – not the same image.

The only disappointment was that the images are displayed digitally and are not prints. The displays are very very good and I am sure they had been correctly calibrated. This seems to make some sense given that all but one image was captured on digital cameras, but I would have preferred prints.

Today, we went to the National Portrait Gallery near Trafalgar Square to see the exhibition of photographs which were competing from Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010.  There are some amazing portraits including David Chancellor’s winning portrait titled “Huntress with Buck”.  Taken in South Africa, it depicts a young American women returning to camp on horse back with a dead buck straddled across the horse in front of her.

My personal favourite is the second prize winner, Panayiotis Lamprou for his portrait titled “Portrait of My British Wife”.  It shows a very informal and personal shot of my wife relaxing just outside their summer house on Schinousa Island in the Aegean Sea.  The subtle light is just amazing.

The exhibition runs until 20th February 2011 so if you are in London I would recommend going.