Jan Vermeer’s “Great reed
warbler singing”
No Canadians artists were featured in the wildlife photography exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Of the 19,000 entries to the competition, ninety images were selected, and on display, depicting animals and nature from the sub-zero wastes of the arctic coast to the searing heat of a Tanzanian soda lake and the reefs of the Red Sea. The room was dark, illuminated mostly by the backlit photographs themselves and the stock atmospheric nature CD played from hidden speakers. Most of the noise in the gallery came from the three school groups chatting, giggling and drawing. There is an image of an arctic fox caught leaping a meter in the air and another of a devil ray caught leaping a meter out of the ocean. There is an image of a glowing mountain, a volcanic gold rhyolite hill in Landmannalaugar that was momentarily highlighted by the shifting sunlight. One photographer stilled the breaths of a reed warbler singing at dawn. They are example of photographs which come from hours of waiting and waiting and shooting and shooting, and living out of a tent and cooking over an open flame for three weeks in wild solitude. Often the elements would compose themselves from chance as a bird positioned itself in front of the full moon, just before the weather becomes too spectacularly inclement to continue.