A heartbreaking photograph of an elephant carrying a dead calf has been named the overall winner of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 — and Londoners will be able to see it when the exhibition opens at the Natural History Museum this Friday.
The winning image, titled The Aftermath, was taken by Italian photographer Federico Veronesi in Namibia’s Huab River Valley. It shows a female elephant carrying the calf with its leg wedged between her tusk and trunk, captured in black and white.
Veronesi had been tracking elephant marks through the dry riverbed when he noticed an unusual trail of drag marks in the sand. Following them, he came across the female elephant with the calf. Researchers later identified her as a female who had lost a calf of her own several years earlier — and who had previously been seen picking up dead calves belonging to other females.
Kathy Moran, chair of the competition’s jury, said: “This photograph works on so many levels. Emotionally it’s a gut punch, heartbreakingly poignant. Intellectually it’s proof that animals have cognition.”
A first for the competition
This year marks the first time in the competition’s 62-year history that both overall winners have been recognised for black-and-white photography. The Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year title went to British photographer Oscar Whitfield for Labour of Love, a low, ground-level shot of a dung beetle pushing its ball through dust.
The winners were announced at a ceremony at the Natural History Museum hosted by naturalists and TV presenters Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin. The competition drew a record 65,403 entries from 121 countries and territories, all judged anonymously on creativity, technical excellence and originality.
Doug Gurr, the museum’s director, said the winning photographs “demonstrate the extraordinary power of wildlife photography to help us see nature differently” and “remind us that every species plays a role in the complex web of life.”
The exhibition
An exhibition of 100 selected images — including the overall winners and 19 category winners — opens at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington on Friday 16 October and runs until 11 July 2027. Tickets can be booked online now.
The annual exhibition is one of the museum’s biggest draws, and this year’s edition arrives with the competition at a record scale. For anyone who has ever stood in Hintze Hall and felt small beneath the blue whale, the wildlife photography show is the museum’s other great ritual — and the museum has been leaning into after-hours and special events to keep the crowds coming.
What to know before you go
The museum sits on Cromwell Road in South Kensington, a short walk from South Kensington station on the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines. As with all the museum’s ticketed exhibitions, booking ahead online is strongly advised — opening weekends for Wildlife Photographer of the Year routinely sell out, and the half-term crowds are only a week away.
If you’re making a day of it in the area, South Kensington’s museum quarter is built for exactly that: the V&A and the Science Museum are both within a few minutes’ walk, and Exhibition Road itself is worth the stroll. The main museum remains free to enter, so the ticketed wildlife show pairs naturally with the permanent galleries — dinosaurs, the earthquake simulator and all. For families weighing up the capital’s current cultural calendar, there are free options elsewhere in town too — but few exhibitions land with the quiet emotional force this one promises.
One image of an elephant, carrying what she could not save, in a dry riverbed in Namibia — opening Friday, a short Tube ride away.
