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Thursday, May 20, 2021

Newbury Weekly News

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT 2 n

Inside The Base gallery ©Hannah Vijayan, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020 Global showcase of top photography

LINWILKINSON reviews the impressive opening exhibition at The Base, Greenham.Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London

show. Luce’s two elephants are pawns in a tourist ‘photo opportunity’. Paul Hilton has been photographing the illegal wildlife trade for over 20 years, and won the Photojournalist Story Award for his own hard- hitting panel. Misery is etched on the faces of animals used for human amusement – bears, macaques, and a baby orang-utan kept illegally in a small household. We see only the back of a chimpanzee dressed in human clothing. Facing the viewer are smiling Shanghai tourists. It’s degrading; for the primate and the tourists. The burning, broiling centre in Etna’s River of Fire (Luciano Gaudenzio) shows nature in all its raw power, but also pleases aesthetically, with its resolute composition and rich colour contrasts. In Charlie Hamilton James’s red-hot image, the Amazon rain forest is being burned for commercial planting, imperilling indigenous peoples. Only global

corporations win. Human degradation of the natural world is also seen in Andrew S Wright’s The Price of Oil , a vast landscape of nodding donkeys in a desert area, looking like a Biblical swarm of black insects. Paul Hilton’s Palm Oil Sacrifice sees an elephant near to death, its leg caught in an illegal snare, mono- culture plantations considered more important than the animal’s traditional habitat. Eye of the Drought (José Fragoso) is a study in viscous grey, the eye of a hippo the only defined element in a drought-stricken mud pool. In Zack Clothier’s wide-angle image of a Colorado lake, dry, cracked mud dominates. Gabriel Eisenband foregrounds sharply focused, yellow flowers against the blue of swirling mist and indistinct Andean mountains; a conventional subject and approach, but masterfully handled. Lorenzo Shoubridge has used a wide- angle lens to intensify the sense of two wolves in the Italian Alps loping into the viewer’s space, the whole composition unified by the greys and browns of the wolves’ coats and the mountain landscape. Songda Cai shows an extraordinary circular image in vibrant colour of a trevally fish inside a transparent jelly fish. It’s not trapped; the behaviour helps the fish evade predators. Sam Sloss’ orange and white clown fish weaves through a waving, spring-green sea anemone; look closely for the surprise. Colour is paramount, too, in Jaime Culebras’s Andean glass-frog eating a spider, the creature’s orange transparent form contrasted with the shiny green of the wet branch it clings to. Yosuke Kashiwakura’s Art of Recycling is nicely observed. A crow has incorporated a coat hanger into the structure of its nest. A study in subtle colour, it’s also a comment on how wildlife can adapt in heavily populated areas. Max Waugh’s tayra in a Panama rubber tree is a solid black shape at the centre of a tangle of coloured leaves and fruit; it’s

THE Natural History Museum’s acclaimed Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition has just opened at The Base at Greenham. Launched in 1965, it’s a global showcase featuring work by photographers from all over the world. Visitors may take as read the technical expertise of the individual photographers, many of whom are seasoned professionals, and the very high quality of the prints. Yet these are creative images too. It’s a rich show, with a wide appeal. Current concerns and challenges are represented: ecological damage and habitat encroachment; the deleterious effects of climate change; and the effect of human behaviour on nature’s diversity and resilience. Sadly, cruelty and lack of awareness still thrive – humans continue to exploit animals. Kirsten Luce’s image, in steely ice-blue and white, shows a polar bear, jaws clamped shut by a wire muzzle, forced to perform in an American ice-rink

©Evie Easterbrook Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020

Visitors may take as read the technical exper tise of the individual

almost a textile design. Photography can often be as much about patience as light and time. Sergey Gorshkov, the 2020 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, took 10 months to nail his image of a majestic Amur tiger marking a tree, its burnished coat and forest surroundings lit by shafts of sunlight. The red-golds are echoed by the fiery coat of a fox cub with prey in the adjacent image, by Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Liina Heikkinen. Ripan Biswas took the Portfolio Award with his panel of work on weaver ants, the differential focus inherent in macro photography concentrating attention on the insects, and blurring the context. Evie Easterbrook’s Paired- Up Puffins , in the 11-14 Young Photographers’ section, combines pin-sharp composition, limited colour – and humour. It makes you smile. The show runs till Sunday, June 13. LIN WILKINSON Open 7 days a week 10am-5pm (last entry 4pm) Tickets £9 (£7.50 concs, £6 under-16s,

under-5s free) All tickets must be booked in advance with a time slot https://thebasegreenham.co.uk **Running in conjunction with the show is My Wildlife , an exhibition by young local photographers, aged up to 18. They show a wealth of talent. prints. Yet these are creative images too. It’s a rich show, with a wide appeal photographers, many of whom are seasoned professionals, and the very high quality of the

©Arshdeep Singh, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2020