Uff, I just made it to the exhibition of the best wildlife photos of the world of 2012 – you can see it in the National History Museum in London, or actually for me more conveniently located in the Museum Mensch und Natur right here in Munich in the Nymphenburg Palace (or online here). Every year I really make sure not to miss this exhibition of the state of the art of wildlife photography!
I love this image from Richard Peters (UK), currently ranking highest in the visitor ranking over at their web site:
Seeing all these images and at the same time thinking about future travel plans, I remembered that slightly more than 2 years ago I made a statistical analysis of where the photographers came from, and more importantly, where the winning images were taken. You can find my old post right here.
Renewing the statistics with the winning images from 2012, the picture changed slightly: If we have a quick count of the home countries of the winning photographers, and summarize to continents or rather “areas”, we still have a certainly strong European flavor in this competition (but welcome to our Russian and Asian friends!):
| Area | 2010 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| Europe | 51 | 42 |
| North America | 17 | 18 |
| South Africa | 8 | 6 |
| Russia | 0 | 3 |
| SE Asia | 0 | 2 |
| Israel | 2 | 1 |
| Brazil | 1 | 1 |
| Australia | 4 | 0 |
| India | 2 | 0 |
But, again, where the photographers are from is not as relevant for our discussion as where the images were actually made. So, drilling down on the area the winning photos were made in, no surprise Africa comes up first *again*, but actually North America caught up.
| Area | 2010 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| Africa | 12 | 13 |
| North America | 8 | 13 |
| Antarctica | 2 | 6 |
| Scandinavia | 8 | 6 |
| Southern Europe | 11 | 6 |
| Eastern Europe | - | 4 |
| Arctic | - | 3 |
| Central Europe | 8 | 3 |
| SE Asia | 4 | 3 |
| UK | 6 | 3 |
| Iceland | 0 | 2 |
| India | 5 | 2 |
| Japan | 0 | 2 |
| Middle America | 8 | 2 |
| South America | 7 | 2 |
| Australia | 3 | 1 |
| Russia | 0 | 1 |
| Israel | 2 | 0 |
| Indian Ocean | 2 | 0 |
Ok, never trust a statistical analysis you didn’t fake yourself – of course, looking at the area covered we probably should not subdivide Europe into 4 areas as I did – actually, European wildlife and landscapes scores first on the per continent analysis:
| Continent | 2010 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| Europe | 33 | 23 |
| The Americas | 23 | 17 |
| Africa | 12 | 13 |
| Asia | 9 | 7 |
| Antarctica | 2 | 6 |
| Arctic | - | 3 |
| Middle East | 2 | 2 |
| Australia | 3 | 1 |
| Oceanic | 2 | 0 |
Even if the overall order stayed the same in the top position, there is a strong trend towards photos from the arctic regions of the planet. We could speculate if this is still attributed to the climate change message we cannot hear enough of, as we really need to change our attitude as humankind towards the planet. But my first reaction to the exhibition still was:
Too many polar bears!
I think we need to find new ways on how to convey the scope of the climate change problem to the audience. Just showing images of polar bears on melting ice doesn’t cut it anymore.
Tags: link tip, Photo Location, Travel, Wildlife, WPOY
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