Stills Photography Bio

Martyn Colbeck Wildlife Photographer of the YearMartyn Colbeck is primarily a wildlife cinematographer and film-maker but he is also a world-renowned stills photographer.

In 1993 Martyn was the overall winner of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition run by BBC Wildlife Magazine and The Natural History Museum in London.  His dramatic photograph was a cryptic study of a bull elephant dusting in Amboseli National Park, Kenya.  In the same year he was also Runner-Up in the Endangered Wildlife category and received Highly Commended honours for photographs in the Animal Behaviour and Photo Story categories.

In 1996, Martyn won the Gerald Durrell award for Endangered Wildlife in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition for his photograph of a wild bonobo (pygmy chimpanzee) taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  This photograph was taken while Martyn was making a film for the BBC about these rare and elusive great apes.

In 2005 Martyn was both winner and runner-up in the Black and White category of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition with two photographs of elephants taken in Amboseli National Park, Kenya.

Martyn’s fine art black and white photographs are sold all over the world and he has had several successful exhibitions of his work, one of which was opened by Sir David Attenborough.

Martyn’s photographs have appeared in most of the world’s major publications including National Geographic, Geo and Terre Sauvage and he has contributed all the photographs for two books, “Echo of the Elephants” and a children’s book “Little Big Ears” both written by Cynthia Moss of the “Amboseli Trust for Elephants.

Martyn Colbeck, Wildlife Cinematographer