Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

We visited this museum today to enjoy the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition - an exhibition I always enjoy.  The images are just stunning.  The patience and skill required to capture these shots is way beyond me.

I find it interesting how much impact digital photography has had on wildlife photography.  Most of the images appear to be taken at ISO settings far above the film speeds that were available, but without any undue signs of grain/noise.  Technically, the images were excellent (as you would expect of a competition of this calibre).  There were also stitched images and focus-stacked images.  These techniqies are all acceptable in this competition provided the content of the picture is not edited, but they are techniques that were not available in the days of film.

Most years we have seen this exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, where the displays are back-lit in a darkened room.  The display here is not quite as atmospheric, but still very good:  these are large prints in a gallery with dimmed lighting and a similar soundscape.  In any case, it is better than the exhibition a couple of years ago when I saw it in the nearby "M-Shed" gallery with (as I recall) possibly smaller prints in a bright room - it had no atmosphere at all.

I thoroughly recommend this exhibition, wherever you are able to see it.