W I N N E R !

I am both flattered, humble and of course proud, to announce that my image of a polar bear taken last year has been awarded the winner of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the year, Animal portrait category 2010!

This competition is considered to be  the most prestigeous of all nature photo competitions. This year, there were a stunning 31 000 entries from more than 80 different countries! As many times before, I was on an seabird expedition for the Norwegian Polar Institute when this bear approached. We retreated into our zodiac, to not risk any unfortunate incidents before we started to photograph this very curious bear. When taking picture of nature, safety for the animal or bird I am working with is always of first priority!

I am also very pleased to see that there were images from no less than three other Norwegian photographers at the exhibtion. Tom Schandy, Roy Mangersnes and Orsolya Haarberg all achieved honorable mention in this very prestigeous competition. This shows that Norwegian nature photography are really at the high end amongst the world's nature photography buisness.

The exhibition with all the winning and highly commended images will now tour the world, and is expected to have more than one million visitors world wide before the end of next year.

-EG-