Goose barnacles, Portland, Dorset by Ryan Stalker.The football was washed up in Dorset after making a journey across the Atlantic and then returned to the sea for the photo to be taken
A dramatic image of a soccer ball covered in invasive goose barnacles has taken out the top prize in this year’s prestigious British Wildlife Photography Awards, beating out more than 14,000 entries capturing the world around us.
The photo, snapped by Ryan Stalker, is a powerful reminder of how many wonders of nature are out there – if you know where to look.
“Above the water is just a football,” Stalker said. “But below the waterline is a colony of creatures. The football was washed up in Dorset after making a huge ocean journey across the Atlantic. More rubbish in the sea could increase the risk of more creatures making it to our shores and becoming invasive species.”
Stalker/BWPA
“The British Wildlife Photography Awards brings to light the spectacular tapestry of Britain’s natural heritage,” said Will Nicholls, Director of BWPA. “This collection is more than just a gallery of images; it is a celebration, a reminder of the enduring beauty of British wildlife and a call to preserve the natural spaces that we are so fortunate to have.”
Check out some of the highlights below, and view our gallery to see all winners and runners-up across the 10 adult categories (Animal Behaviour, Animal Portraits, Botanical Britain, Black & White, British Seasons, Coast & Marine, Habitat, Hidden Britain, Urban Wildlife and Wild Woods) and three junior groups (11 and Under, 12-14 Years and 15-17 Years).
Williams/BWPA
Mark Williams captured this otherworldly shot of a common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) in the West Midlands, which earned him the top prize in the Animal Portraits category. It’s a stunning image, especially given how difficult it is to capture birds in flight at night.
“I had been observing the birds in my garden as they fed on sunflower seeds and peanuts from the feeder for some time,” Williams said. “I aimed to capture the sense of movement and flight patterns in my images while still preserving the fine details of the birds. To achieve this, I used flash in rear curtain sync mode. Timing was crucial, and I needed to carefully balance the flash with the ambient light to record the starling’s trail at the beginning of the exposure, while a brief burst of flash would freeze the bird in mid-flight.”
McCombe/BWPA
In what may make slime mold enthusiasts a little hot under the collar, this image of the delicate, tiny single-celled organisms won the Botanical Britain category. A little controversial, since slime mold (Comatricha nigra) is not a botanical – nor is it an animal or a fungus. It’s a microscopic protist. It’s also incredibly cool.
“The world of slime molds is fascinating,” said photographer Jason McCombe, who snapped this tiny growth in Essex. “They’re neither plants nor fungi. I had never noticed them before, but when I set out to find some to photograph, I discovered that, if conditions are right, they’re everywhere! They’re just so small that if you are not looking for them you will simply overlook them. Each head on these fruiting bodies is approximately 1-mm wide, and the depth of field when shooting at such high magnification is so shallow that focus stacking is required. This image was made using 160 images, each focused on a different area of the scene, then stacked together to create one highly detailed image.”
While it can be argued the protists’ name is hardly appealing – slime and mold? No thanks – they spend much of their life invisible to the human eye, in microscopic form. But during the plasmodial stage of their life cycle, the formations McCombe captured emerge – and they can span up to three feet in size. They’re also harmless to humans and animals, and actually act as ecosystem helpers, feeding on bacteria, fungi and decaying organic matter.
Niven/BWPA
Another dazzling winner, this time in the Wild Woods category, comes from Graham Niven in Scotland. Having lost most of their leaves for the season, these beech (Fagus sylvatica) show a perfect example of canopy shyness, or crown shyness, in which the tops of mature trees go to great lengths to not touch each other and instead form an all-but-interlocking system of thousands of branches that form the forest’s cover.
“The trees form a canopy that has channel-like gaps which, when photographed from below, appear to create an intricate network of channels between the respective canopies,” said Niven. “Besides the wondrous vision you are afforded, it’s also just a great excuse to lie down in the forest.
Scientists believe that trees avoid touching each other to maximize each one’s access to light for photosynthesis. However, there are also theories that the process limits the spread of parasites and disease jumping from tree to tree, and it may limit damage inflicted by neighbors during windy weather.
Bolt/BWPA
Another bizarre and rare capture is this shot of a fireworks anemone (Pachycerianthus multiplicatus), taken by Dan Bolt in Scotland. These anemones, which grow up through mud in subtidal areas, have extruding tentacles that look to be bursting outwards in the water, which inspired their common name.
Naturally, they’re brown and white, but Bolt leaned into their ‘fireworks’ side and gave them a fluorescent makeover – and, lucky for him, they remained blissfully unaware.
“Fluorescence photography requires specialist filters: one ‘exciter’ filter on your white-light source to create the blue light and another ‘barrier’ filter in front of your lens to reduce the ambient light reaching your sensor,” he explained. “These dual filters mean that high ISOs and open apertures are very much required in order to capture the excited, or fluoresced, light. The subject requires a careful approach too; these anemones live in very still water and are sensitive to the slightest movement. If disturbed, they will retract in mere seconds.”
See the rest of the winners and runners-up in our gallery here.
Source: British Wildlife Photography Awards
Doony Graff has always been creative, involving himself in Mexico City’s graffiti scene before finding himself at home, making Neoperreo music (a subgenre of reggaeton). The artist, who is from Nezahualcóyotl, was the perfect subject for Columbian photographer David Mesa. Currently based in Berlin, Mesa has been traveling to different countries in Central and South America with the goal of documenting and creating visual archives of up-and-coming contemporary talent.
Mesa chose Graff for his most recent visual essay, working in collaboration with fashion stylist Artie and creative producer Brian Fontana, who he refers to as “indispensable pillars of the underground queer fashion and revolutionary epicenter of the city known as of La Tianguis Disidente.” The shoot also features grooming by Zaybernetic. The photos juxtapose Graff in over-the-top fashion against a straightforward city backdrop, highlighting him in designers like Manchado, Baby Phat and Chanel. Check out the photo essay, exclusively on PAPER, below.
Graff is currently working on multiple tracks as part of a collection called EZYA. His next release “VECINITA” is set for release on March 15, which he tells PAPER he’s excited to share with the world. When asked about his hometown, he tells us that the best part of Mexico City is “the people, the parties and the neighborhood” adding: “my environment where I live and all its people give me strength to create things the way I perceive them.” Graff has made a name for himself in Mexico City, sharing that “there is nothing better than meeting people who know me on the street and having them ask me for a photo.”
So outside of his city, what inspires Graff? “There are too many artists that have inspired me over the years,” he says. “But without a doubt one of them would be Yung Beef and the entire Boricua reggaeton scene of yesteryear.”
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Princess Kate Middleton’s photography passion began when she started taking birthday portraits for her three children.
Kate shares sons Prince George and Prince Louis and daughter Princess Charlotte with her husband, Prince William. To mark their kids’ birthdays each year, William and Kate release a new portrait. Eventually, Kate started taking the pictures herself, snapping shots of George, Charlotte and Louis in relaxed environments instead of more formal photo sessions.
Royal family photographer Samir Hussein told Us Weekly exclusively in May 2020 that Kate has a good eye.
“You can see from the pictures she takes that she’s better, certainly better than your average person on the streets,” Hussein told Us. “She’s got a good eye, and she’s a good photographer. I’m impressed by her pictures, absolutely.”
Princess Kate Through the Years: From Commoner to Future Queen Consort
Kate’s budding talents also caught the eye of Queen Camilla, who enlisted the princess to take the cover photos for her 2022 profile in the U.K.’s Country Life magazine.
“She immediately replied, ‘Oh I’d quite like Catherine to do it.’ I spent the next three or four minutes desperately racking my brain trying to think of a professional photographer called Catherine,” editor Mark Hedges recalled in a statement. “Then suddenly I grasped what she meant — one of the most amazing things that could happen. I found it one of the easier things to nod my head at.”
Kate’s Country Life cover was the first formal portrait of Camilla that Kate has taken.
Nearly two years later in March 2024, Kate’s photo skills sparked backlash when royal watchers noticed that a family Mother’s Day photo appeared to be edited. Several news outlets subsequently pulled the image from their sites after claiming that the photo had been manipulated by the source.
Kate, calling herself an “amateur photographer,” later admitted to experimenting with photo editing software in a social media statement.
Keep scrolling to read everything Kate has said about her photography skills:
During the coronavirus pandemic, Kate launched her Hold Still project with the National Portrait Gallery to demonstrate the “power of photography” during a challenging time.
“We’ve all seen some incredible images out there and heard some amazing stories — some desperately sad stories, but also some really uplifting ones as well,” she said during an appearance on the U.K.’s This Morning. “I really hope that through a project like this, we might be able to showcase some of those stories and to document and share a moment in time, I suppose, that we’re all experiencing.”
During the interview, Kate once again labeled herself as an “amateur” but still offered a few tips she’s picked up.
“I sort of learn on the way, but actually during this time [in lockdown], I spent lots of time picking up my camera and taking photos of the children because they’re always around us when we’re doing stuff together,” she added. “One of the fantastic things about photography is really capturing that moment so it’s not staged; it’s not setting it up perfectly; it’s not clearing your house away so you got a perfect studio setup but it’s really capturing those moments that feel real to you.”
Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Biggest Controversies Through the Years
“Everyone’s like, ‘Mummy, please stop taking photographs!’” Kate joked during a video for Hold Still, referring to her three kids.
After Kate’s Mother’s Day portrait sparked backlash over its alleged manipulation, she released a statement confirming how she had tweaked the pic.
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” the princess wrote. “I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day.”
By Joanna Putman
Police1
NEW YORK — The American Kennel Club (AKC) Museum of the Dog has launched a special exhibit documenting the service of NYPD K-9s through photography, an AKC press release states.
The “Dogs that Serve” exhibit, which opened March 13 and will remain open through May 5, showcases the work of Margaret Foxmoore, who has been photographing the NYPD Transit Bureau K-9 Unit for six years, according to the release.
“My objective with this collection of photos is to bring to light the heroism that these officers and their K-9s put on display every day in this city and beyond and to humanize those behind the badge,” said Foxmoore. “This exhibit is truly not about me; it’s about them.”
The exhibit features photos of K-9s at work with their handlers and also serves to honor Ret. Lieutenant Commanding Officer John Pappas, who retired this past fall after 27 years in the NYPD, according to the release. Pappas founded the Transit K-9 Unit in 2005. His partner, K-9 Palla, the highest-ranking K-9 in NYPD history, will have her harness on display during the exhibition.
“I sincerely hope that the exhibit may inspire coming generations to be K-9 handlers and to work together with their dogs to achieve great things,” said Pappas. “The bond between a pet and its family is strong, but the bond between a police K-9 handler and his canine partner, is one of the strongest bonds between human and animal in existence. My partner and I will forever be inseparable.”
People walk past an outdoor installation at Metro Hall, in Toronto, for the 2022 CONTACT Photography Festival.Bahar Kamali/Handout
The Bank of Nova Scotia will drop its title sponsorship of Toronto’s Contact Photography Festival after this year’s edition, forcing organizers to search for new flagship funders as they gear up for the May event.
Contact has grown since 1997 to become one of the world’s largest photography festivals, attracting as many as 1.5 million people a year in venues and public places across Canada’s most populous city. Scotiabank has funded much of its budget since 2010, when it became the title sponsor after a few years of less intensive involvement.
While title sponsorships usually have a finite shelf life, Contact is emerging into a much different corporate-funding world than when Scotiabank first signed on. Despite nearly 18 months’ notice and help from the bank to find replacement sponsors, chief executive Darcy Killeen says the festival has only found two smaller-scale donors to step up in its stead. “I don’t see us getting a title sponsor now,” Killeen says. “I see us getting a series of large, national brands to work together.”
Contact’s annual revenues have recently been in the $1.3-million range, according to federal filings, except for a drop during the first year of the pandemic. Scotiabank has historically funded between a third and half that, Killeen says – but the new donors only represent about a tenth of the bank’s commitment. Finding a full replacement “is proving to be very difficult,” Killeen says. “That could have implications in the future for our ability to continue to curate at the level that we do.” (Some of Contact’s government funding is designed to match other revenue streams, Killeen added, threatening to lower the festival’s income further without a replacement.)
Though companies are still interested in arts and culture, some leaders in the sponsorship sector say that throwing a company’s name onto major festivals’ titles appears to have become less lucrative over the past decade. Potential sponsors are paying more attention to social causes they believe will boost their brand, while the well-heeled world of pro sports offers more eyeballs and data to prove returns on investment.
The consequences of this shift can be immediate. To save costs this year, Contact declined to print a festival catalogue and significantly reduced its advertising efforts. Though Killeen says the festival has not had to compromise on programming or the services it provides artists this year, he’s worried about making tough calls for future editions.
Contact revealed its struggles in replacing Scotiabank just six months after the telecom giant Bell dropped its 28-year title sponsorship of the Toronto International Film Festival. Last August, Bell said that it had exited its TIFF partnership “in order to invest in other opportunities that are core to our business.”
And at Scotiabank, “our sponsorships are strategic decisions made over time to align with business priorities,” chief marketing officer Laura Curtis Ferrera wrote in an e-mail. (The bank continues to sponsor the Scotiabank Giller Prize for fiction and is a presenting sponsor of the Hot Docs film festival, which itself recently revealed financial struggles.)
The end of Scotiabank’s title sponsorship for Contact comes in a post-COVID-lockdown era in which costs are soaring and culture-goers’ habits have changed. Many small and medium-sized theatre companies across the country are struggling to stay alive. Just last week, the Shaw Festival announced the biggest deficit in its history, while Just for Laughs cancelled this year’s Montreal comedy festival as it sought creditor protection.
Facing reduced audience revenue and often-stagnant government funding, many arts organizations have come to depend on philanthropy and corporate sponsors. But the gradual shift in sponsors’ attitudes in recent years means that finding a single title sponsor may no longer be a panacea to financial issues.
“The shift in arts sponsorship in itself is not a crisis – but coupled with the other trends that we’re seeing, it does create a very challenging environment for arts organizations,” says Aubrey Reeves, chief executive of Business / Arts, a Canadian charity that works to bridge those two worlds.
The sponsorship world is one of constant change. Going back to the 1980s and early nineties, it was common for major arts sponsorships to originate from boards and C-suites. Over time, however, major sponsorships increasingly became the responsibility of marketing departments that were more interested in direct measurements of return on investment, especially as consumer-behaviour tracking data became more granular in the digital age.
“I’m seeing an overall trend that is very slow: that brands perceive arts and culture properties, in general terms, more philanthropically,” says James O’Connor, a former professional dancer with the National Ballet of Canada who’s now vice-president with A&C Canada, a partnership agency that has worked with Contact in the past.
A major shakeup in how Canadian companies spread their sponsorship dollars began about a decade ago, according to the Canadian Sponsorship Landscape Study. Norm O’Reilly, a long-time sponsorship scholar who has run the study for nearly 20 years, says there was a “renaissance” in sports funding starting around 2013, which led to its piece of the pie nearly doubling to 45 per cent in 2022.
At the same time, brands kept sponsoring arts organizations in part because they “expected arts partners to have a ‘cause’ associated with them,” O’Reilly says. The study, he noted, was anonymous and voluntary in the corporate world – and thus not exhaustive – but it did have participation from the financial services and communications sectors.
The pandemic-era corporate refocusing on social justice issues, including the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, appears to have prompted sponsors to focus more dollars directly on “cause”-related partnership rights, O’Reilly says. The study found that while arts sponsorships have grown slightly since 2019, accounting for 3.9 per cent of spending then and 7.9 per cent in 2022, cause-related sponsorships surged from 5.6 per cent to 19.4 per cent. (While arts sponsorship has grown in aggregate, O’Reilly says the dollars could be spreading across more organizations, particularly to those that have a connection to social causes.)
Scotiabank’s attention has been pulled both toward sport and social causes. Curtis Ferrera highlighted the bank’s ScotiaRISE program – a $500-million, 10-year effort focused on programs that give more people a better chance at climbing the economic ladder. And in 2017, Scotiabank won the naming rights to Toronto’s largest arena, the former Air Canada Centre, in a deal The Globe reported to be worth $800-million over 20 years.
Toronto’s multidisciplinary Luminato Festival lost its long-time exclusive presenting partner L’Oréal several years ago, and has since focused on highlighting individual events and other programming within the festival for companies to sponsor.
“We find special alignments where distinct elements of the program work with their target audiences,” says Jessica Litwin, the festival’s chief development officer. “I want them to feel that return on investment; it’s much easier to make it feel mutually beneficial.”
With a report from Barry Hertz.
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A wedding photographer is to be sentenced after pleading guilty to felony theft after scamming dozens of couples.
Colorado-based photographer Suzanne Nevill of Suzanne Nevill Photography has been accused of withholding payments to other photographers and not delivering images to couples.
According to CBS News, Nevill was charged with eight counts of felony theft and pleaded guilty to one class five felony in January.
Nevill’s plea agreement stipulates that she will pay nearly $40,000 in restitution and serve a four-year deferred sentence, meaning no jail time, unless she violates the terms of the plea.
The wedding photographer will be sentenced on Friday at Douglas County District Court in Colorado.
If the judge accepts Nevill’s plea agreement on Friday, 39 victims will be entitled to that financial restitution.
However, Parker Police in Colorado says it has reports about the wedding photographer from more than 120 victims — with the most recent report filed in February 2023.
There have been complaints about Nevill by clients as well as other photographers dating back to 2021.
CBS News reports that a Facebook group warning against hiring Nevill currently has 16,000 members. Many of the members are brides and photographers who say Nevill still owes them thousands of dollars.
A bride told CBS News that Nevill agreed to refund her as recently as December, but never did.
According to a report by KDVR last year, Nevill was accused of booking weddings as a photographer. But then shortly before the big day, Nevill would back out of the job with dramatic excuses and make a last-minute plea for other wedding photographers to fill in for her.
Other photographers and associates would feel sorry for Nevill. They would step up to help her and shoot the wedding day for her clients in her place. However, they claim that they never received their payments from Nevill.
Nevill promised a second payment deposit would be sent to the photographers and associates after they had shot the wedding day for her clients. But this would never be paid.
And as a result, the couples would never receive the final wedding photos as Nevill had never paid the substitute photographers.
For example, bride-to-be Sarah Garcia hired Nevill in 2021. Garcia believed that she had found her dream photographer for her wedding in Nevill and purchased a wedding package for over $1,400.
“She had a website and definitely looked legit. Facebook, Instagram, had a huge portfolio,” Garcia tells CBS News.
“An engagement session, a boudoir shoot, and eight hours of photography at the wedding, with two photographers. The only stipulation was you had to pay in full the same day.”
However, when Garcia tried to schedule the engagement and boudoir shoots, Nevill couldn’t be reached
The bride panicked. But the night before her wedding in May 2021, Nevill texted Garcia to say she would be there.
However, on the big day, another photographer showed up because Nevill had claimed that “someone was in the hospital with COVID or something like that.”
Garcia was able to shake off the disappointment and enjoy her wedding. But Nevill never paid that photographer.
Garcia had to pay that substitute photographer a further $1,200 to get her wedding photos — in addition to what she had originally paid Nevill.
According to CBS News, Nevill’s old website is no longer active, but the Secretary of State’s website lists her name with another photography business called “Becoming You.” That business has active websites and social media pages.
Image credits: Feature photo licensed via Depositphotos.
Once upon a time, we only had SLR cameras, and they were only able to shoot black-and-white photographs. It took decades of development to create cameras that shoot in colour and don’t need a mirror – so the most fascinating thing about 2023 is that not only do we have a new digital SLR, but one that only shoots black-and-white photographs.
Every year, we hear that DSLRs are dead and that Pentax is a dinosaur taunting an incoming asteroid for thumbing its nose at mirrorless. Yet here we are, with one of the year’s best cameras being a DSLR from Pentax, which is going even more Jurassic in 2024, as it resurrects its line of film cameras.
At the other end of the spectrum, Sony is that asteroid trying to eradicate the SLR era. Its latest flagship camera doesn’t have a mirror, a mechanical shutter, or even a rolling shutter sensor – which means it doesn’t have flash sync speed limits, either. The global shutter era is here and it is about to transform the photographic landscape in ways we can’t even comprehend yet.
Innovation doesn’t only happen at technology’s top end, though. Canon is continuing its commitment to beginner photographers, a category that both Fujifilm and Nikon have said is no longer a primary concern to them. Entry-level cameras need to be more capable and usable than ever, to give people a reason to put down their smartphones, and today’s ‘basic’ EOS is pretty much a powerhouse.
From top to bottom, the camera industry has never been more vivid or exciting.
This camera just threw away the photography rule book
Four words changed everything forever: ‘full-frame global shutter’. The A9 III is the new yardstick by which all flagships will be measured, with 120fps full-resolution 14 bit RAW continuous shooting, a 1/80,000 sec shutter speed, and both AI measures and countermeasures. The former uses a predictive AI algorithm to inform the autofocus system and better track subjects, while the latter embraces the C2PA content authenticity protocol to battle fake news and manipulated imagery. Most of this is completely irrelevant to many photographers – but when the tech starts to trickle down, this is where it will be starting from.
Sony A9 III review: the most remarkable camera I’ve ever used
With the bulk of the profit at the top end of the market, most manufacturers have abandoned the beginner cameras sector. Leave it to Canon, then, to not just replace its old entry-level DSLRs, but to do so with a mirrorless model that offers a ridiculous amount of bang for your buck. The R100’s sensor offers frankly stunning image quality; the autofocus system is the same as the one in the 5D Mark IV; it has a guided user interface that explains the camera’s features and helps you learn creative techniques… it’s a phenomenal beginner camera that takes a pro-quality picture.
Canon EOS R100 review: the beginner camera to beat all others
In many ways, the Leica M11-P is the same as the M11. The same 60.3MP triple-resolution sensor (enabling you to shoot 60MP, 36MP or 18MP stills), built-in 256GB memory, the same lack of autofocus and video… but there is one significant addition: Content Credentials. The M11-P has integrated protocols from the C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) to fight fake news and manipulated images at the point of capture – and it’s the first camera to do so. An incredible street and reportage camera, and also one that’s leading the way in the fight against AI.
Leica M11-P review: a discreet street shooter and an anti-AI ally
If the DSLR is dead, no one told Pentax. The company announced no fewer than six new versions of the K-3 Mark III and, in April, we got the brilliant Monochrome. Mono cameras are maybe the most niche category in the industry, but Pentax decided there was room for one more – and the camera is so popular that it has been on backorder since its launch. If you thought nobody would buy an APS-C DSLR that only shoots in black and white, you were dead wrong.
In a year with so many remarkable cameras, does one whose primary feature is style really merit a mention here? Yes, it does. Designed after the iconic Nikon FM2 SLR (much like 2021’s Nikon Z fc), the Z f is a stunning camera to look at, and one that truly inspires you to shoot with it. Beneath its beauty and brass dials, though, there is plenty of cutting-edge techs, including the AF system from the flagship Z 9, new subject-detection algorithms designed for manual-focus shooting, and a Focus Point VR feature that uses the focus point to inform and improve the image stabilization. Old dog, new tricks.
Nikon Zf review: modern classic
