B.O.R.I.N.G.

Museums don't keep everybody happy. At the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum, also written about in a previous blog post here, five of us were happy and one of us wasn't. That one is ten years old and boy did he let us know that he was bored!

Trying to distract him from continually asking to "go now", I had a bright idea. I gave him my notebook, down which I had written the beginings of an acrostic. The letters of his and his sister's name. I then asked him to go round the exhibition and find things in the photos beginning with each letter. 

He went off, I felt slightly (if a little prematurely) pleased with myself. We now had more time to enjoy the exhibition in peace.

This is what he gave back to me. Not my acrostic, but one he had devised himself.

Bird
Oosten
Reptile
Incredible
Night
Gorilla

I laughed! Genius, I had succeeded in getting him to look at the photos.

You might be wondering about Oosten. That's Marsel Van Oosten who waited years for the right conditions to take a photo of an Acacia tree in the Namibian Desert, taken in rolling fog as the sun was rising. Wonder if he got bored waiting? You can see his picture here.

My son, despite proclaiming to be bored, he did describe the photos as Incredible!

You can see the 'incredible' photos in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum until 23rd March 2014.

Waiting...

At the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition in the Natural History Museum I discovered that, rather than photos being moments of chance, the photographer happening to be in the right place at the right time, a lot of waiting around had gone on. I thought I would tell you some of the stories about waiting to inspire you to visit, as no photography is allowed in the exhibition.

Some waiting sounds more appealing than others.

Underwater... 'When he spotted a fin, he dived down, held his breath and waited for the eight metre (Whale Shark) animal to pass overhead.'

For fifty days... 'In all that time he only saw one tiger, early morning on day fifty of his stake-out.'

For the morning... 'waited for the perfect dew to form on the flower and the vegetation behind it.'

Baiting Bears... 'Using a Deer as bait he waited patiently for ten days.'

For the weather... 'Marsel had waited years for the right weather to take this photo'

On river banks...'It took three days to get close enough to take a photo of this American Crocodile'

On the sea floor... 'Douglas captured this image by lying on the sea floor and waiting for the Dudong (Manatee) to approach'

Camping... 'Udayan spent the night camping next to a colony of Gharias on the bank, hoping to photograph them early in the morning light'

In a hide... 'Anton and his father were in Finland to take pictures of brown bears. They rented a hide, put out some dog food as bait, and waited'

Don't wait too long to go and see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum as it closes on the 23rd March 2014. A great exhibition for teenagers. 

You can read more about the exhibition here.