we made our annual visit to the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition over the new year. i always find it an uplifting experience, a dose of wonder to start the year. it is an amazing (broken) world we live in. when the competition started out there were about a 1000 entries. this year there were 32000 which shows how it and photography has grown.

the photos are in light boxes lit from behind which makes them look fabulous. the small images on the web site really don’t do justice to them. we always have a discussion on our favourites and they are often ones that didn’t win a category but were runners up or highly commended.

i tend to notice the cameras and lenses and so on for the photos these days which shows i have become a geek or have a new area of interest! at least 90% of the photos are taken with canon or nikon cameras as they were last year. they are so dominant – i haven’t had the luxury of trying many makes out but on the basis of this showing if you’re starting out pick one of these two…