• It’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year time with an exhibition opening at the Natural History Museum tomorrow. The exhibition, now in its 62nd year, spotlights highlights from the more than 65,000 entries received in the competition – the winners of which were announced at a ceremony at the museum earlier this week. This year’s winner was a touching shot of an elephant holding its dead calf taken in Namibia’s Huab River Valley by Italian wildlife photographer Federico Veronesi. Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year was won by Oscar Whitfield, a young British photographer residing in Zimbabwe, and his image ‘Labour of Love’ which depicts dung beetle pushing a ball of dung. The exhibition can be seen until 11th July next year. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year.
• A new exhibition exploring the design of the new film Wildwood opens at the Design Museum today. LAIKA presents WILDWOOD: The Exhibition, created in collaboration with Portland based stop-motion studio LAIKA (Coraline, Kubo and The Two Strings), traces the development of the film from early ideas and visual research through to character and environmental design, costume, puppet fabrication, rapid prototyping, miniature set construction, animation and cinematography. Wildwood is being released on 23rd October. The exhibition can be seen until 10th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see https://designmuseum.org.
• Halloween has returned to Kew with an after-dark illuminated trail filled with “legendary creatures, haunted locations and unforgettable eerie encounters”. The 1.5 kilometre-long trail will feature a host of new attractions, including Dracula’s Lair, a Cursed Tomb, a Medieval Dungeon and a mysterious Forest Ritual deep among the trees. The Headless Horseman will once again stalk the gardens and the trail culminates in a Monster Disco. The level of spookiness depends on the time of entry – daylight, twilight and moonlight. Admission charge applies. Runs to 1st November. For more, see www.kew.org/kew-gardens.
• The first exhibition to explore Pictorialism as a global photographic movement has opened at the Tate Modern. Light & Magic: The Birth of Art Photography shows how Pictorialism transformed photography from a documentary tool to fine art and follows its evolution from the 1880s to the 1960s. The display features works from celebrated figures such as Adolph de Meyer and American Clarence H White as well as those of lesser-known artists such as Chinese photographers Long Chin-San and Luo Bonian and Indian-born Shapoor N Bhedwar. Highlights include Emma Barton’s The Awakening (1903), Long Chin-san’s Pavilion Fairyland (c1940s), British photographer Peter Henry Emerson’s A Norfolk Boat-Yard (1886) and Yevonde’s Goddesses series, There’s also works by Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt, Japanese artist Shigeru Onishi and the evolving practices of three of the leading American modernist photographers, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand and Edward Weston. Runs until 21st February, Admission charge applies. For more, see tate.org.uk.
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