A dozen members of the Darling Range Branch braved a very cold morning and met for an excursion to the popular ANZANG Nature Photography exhibition at the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle. This is a celebration of the depth and diversity of nature in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea. Western Australian scuba diver Wayne Osborn won the overall prize for his image of a squid school feeding mid-water in what is generally agreed to be the planet’s most bio-diverse marine region, Raja Ampat in West Papua, Indonesia. It’s an arresting image, with three squid hanging in the water, facing the camera and seemingly studying the photographer, their bioluminescent bodies aglow. Judges said ‘… the image shows a natural phenomenon that is unlikely to be seen firsthand by the majority of the world’s population.’ One couldn’t really argue with that!
Other winners included Julie Fletcher from South Australia for her haunting image of a lightning storm over a lake and its dead trees, taken at Menindee Lakes in NSW, which won the People’s Choice award. Another popular choice was WA photographer Ashton Wright’s lunching caterpillar, taken in Geraldton.
There were 11 categories within the competition: ‘Juniors’ (under 18), ‘Wilderness landscape’, ‘Animal behaviour’, ‘Underwater’, ‘Animal portrait’, ‘Threatened species’, ‘Interpretive’, ‘Our impact’, ‘Black & white’, ‘Botanical’ and ‘Portfolio’.
Under the Juniors category, the winner was a local 17-year-old, Tim Sargeant, who took a lovely intimate picture of a Pink and Grey Cockatoo (Galah) feeding in the sand dunes near Albany. Also in this category were pictures of bees, a fly, a quenda in the Darling Range (also by Tim Sargeant), a Carnaby’s cockatoo and some frogs. These are the work of some very talented young people who will no doubt make their mark in years to come.
Some of the landscape category images were enchanting, especially the winner: a rich, golden-toned, almost sepia-effect photograph of Paradise Bay in Antarctica by Dominic Barrington of NSW. Some of the landscape images also showed wildlife, such as the one taken offshore from Eden in southern NSW, which captured a shearwater silhouetted against the sky and sea. There was also an alluring photo of a curving turquoise bay in the Solomon Islands that had us almost forgetting our winter chill!
The winning image of animal behaviour was taken off the Kimberley coast: a spotfin flying fish soaring over the water, by Rohan Clarke of Victoria. There were some disturbing images in this category, such as the injured King Penguin displaying a gaping hole in its abdomen, most likely from a leopard seal attack. The ‘behaviour’ captured referred to the attention of another penguin, which was standing close to the injured one, possibly about to chase off the skua that was harassing it. Other photos included a peacock spider displaying his abdomen, a hunting egret and an amorous New Zealand fur seal bull.
Underwater photography is notoriously difficult and technically challenging and the images on display showed great experience and precision. There were sharks, sea snakes, whale sharks, courting humpback whales and some blennies (a type of tiny fish). One picture of the latter was so clear that one could see all the individual pigment spots on the skin of the face of the beautiful, blue three-centimetre fish — just amazing.
In taking animal portraits, patience is the essential piece of equipment — never mind the special lenses! The winner was a picture of a newborn Weddell Seal pup near Mawson in Antarctica, taken by WA photographer Gary Miller. The pup was dry and fed and fluffy but still sporting a length of umbilicus and lying on birth-bloodied ground next to its mother. The runner-up in the category was taken close to home, at Bold Park — a soft, spiny-tailed gecko on a banksia flower. Another local one was a male Splendid Fairy-Wren, singing vigorously down south at Dryandra. We all know that wrens can be very difficult to capture because of their busy skipping from perch to perch!
Under the threatened species category came my personal favourite: a critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrot perched on a graceful single branch, in Tasmania. There are only around 30 of these birds left in the wild and the picture of this banded individual captured their pert, fragile beauty and preciousness. Other species were a hawksbill turtle, a northern quoll, an albatross, fairy terns, a swift parrot and a couple of our own forest red-tailed black-cockatoos, squabbling over a tree-top perch at Coodanup near Mandurah.
The interpretive section allows some ‘tweaking’ of images, with some photographers combining multiple images, such as the line-up of seven fairy-wrens on a branch that was awarded the runner-up prize. The category winner was a spectacular image of a wave breaking over rocks near Port Macquarie in NSW. Another stunning image was of two eastern rosellas in flight and either embracing or fighting, set against a blank background.
The botanical category images were a little disappointing. Perhaps it is not as popular as the other categories? The winner was a field of xanthorrea flower spikes in Victoria and the runner-up was a wet fungi cup (not technically a plant), and there were some more xanthorreas and a drosera with insect victim. An image of pandani and other vegetation on a peak in the West Arthurs, south-west Tasmania, was very pleasantly composed.
Less pleasing — but doubtless just as worthy — were the images showing our impact on the environment: deforestation, entangled waterbirds, shipwrecks and pelicans responding opportunistically to our activities.
Nearly 100 images make up the exhibition, which is free to enter and will be on display in the museum’s temporary exhibition gallery until August 4, 2013. For more information see www.museum.wa.gov.au. Photography is not permitted in the exhibition, so unfortunately these word-pictures will have to suffice.
Tanya Marwood