Wildlife Photographer Of The Year: Emotive polar bear image by amateur UK snapper wins top people’s vote prize
An amateur photographer from the UK has won a prestigious Wildlife Photographer Of The Year award with this emotive shot of a polar bear sleeping in a makeshift bed carved into a small iceberg.
Nima Sarikhani captured the image off Norway‘s Svalbard archipelago after spending three days “desperately searching” for the animals through thick fog.
After his expedition vessel changed course, he eventually encountered two polar bears – and witnessed the smaller male bear making his bed before falling asleep.
The picture, titled Ice Bed, has been crowned the winner of the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer Of The Year people’s choice award, after being whittled down to a shortlist of 25 from almost 50,000 entries from around the world.
More than 75,000 people cast their votes – a record number – to name Nima this year’s winner.
Organisers praised the “breathtaking and poignant” image, saying it “allows us to see the beauty and fragility of our planet” and acts as “a stark reminder of the integral bond between an animal and its habitat… a visual representation of the detrimental impacts of climate warming and habitat loss.”
Nima said he was “honoured” to win the award.
“This photograph has stirred strong emotions in many of those who have seen it,” he said. “Whilst climate change is the biggest challenge we face, I hope that this photograph also inspires hope; there is still time to fix the mess we have caused.”
Four photographs were highly commended and will be displayed alongside Ice Bed online and in the accompanying exhibition at the Natural History Museum in west London until the end of June.
The runners-up
The Happy Turtle by Tzahi Finkelstein, from Israel
This image of a Balkan pond turtle sharing a moment with a northern banded groundling dragonfly was taken from a hide in Israel’s Jezreel Valley. Tzahi was photographing shore birds when he spotted the turtle, but only turned his full attention to the reptile when he saw the dragonfly heading its way across the murky waters. When the insect landed, rather than snapping it up for dinner, the turtle appeared playful – leading to the perfect shot.
Shared Parenting by Mark Boyd, from Kenya
A pair of lionesses devotedly groom one of their pride’s five cubs in this early morning image taken in Kenya’s Maasai Mara. Photographer Mark Boyd said he had witnessed them the evening before, leaving the cubs hidden overnight in dense bushes while they went out to hunt. Returning from their mission, they called the cubs out on to the open grassland for a bit of sprucing up. “Here the youngster was clearly enjoying the moment of affection and attention,” Mark’s entry said.
Starling Murmuration by Daniel Dencescu, from Germany/Romania
A murmuration of starlings is always mesmerising, but when the huge, swooping mass forms itself into one giant bird you make sure to reach for your camera. Having seen the birds gathering in Rome after returning from foraging each day, Daniel Dencescu caught this image after spending hours following them around the city and its suburbs. “Finally, on this cloudless winter’s day, the flock didn’t disappoint,” he said.
Aurora Jellies – Audun Rikardsen, from Norway
Illuminated by the aurora borealis, moon jellyfish swarm in the cool autumnal waters of a fjord outside Tromsø in northern Norway in Audun Rikardsen’s image. Sheltering his equipment in a self-made waterproof housing, he used a single exposure as well as his own system for adjusting the focus and aperture to capture the reflection of the sky’s colours on the surface of the water – and at the same time, light up the jellyfish with flashes.
The people’s choice award follows the winner of the overall Wildlife Photographer Of Year prize, which is decided by judges and was awarded to underwater photographer and marine biologist Laurent Ballesta in October.
The last UK winner for the people’s choice award was Sam Rowley, whose image of two fighting mice was voted the favourite in 2020.
A UK photographer last won the main competition in 2007, when wildlife and landscape photographer Ben Osborne picked up the prize for a picture of a large bull elephant kicking and spraying mud in Botswana.
Entertainment
‘People want you to stay in your lane’: Reese Witherspoon on her ‘deeply personal’ decision to write a novel
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
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When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
Kim Kardashian has revealed that she has been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.
- Footage from the latest season of The Kardashians shows the reality TV star going for an imaging scan.
The 45-year-old appears to suggest her small aneurysm may have stemmed from stress.
Brain aneurysms are relatively common, with data suggesting they affect about one in every 50 people.
In many cases, patients may be unaware that they have one – as they tend to cause few symptoms when unruptured.
Brain aneurysms are common but often go undiagnosed. iStock file pic
Should an unruptured aneurysm grow to a larger size, it can cause headaches, balance problems and speech issues.
Those that burst are extremely dangerous and can prove fatal in some circumstances.
While aneurysms can emerge throughout the body, they are most typically found in the aorta, which carries blood out of the heart.
Research suggests brain aneurysms are most common in adults between the ages of 30 and 60 – with women disproportionately affected.
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.
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