A 14-Year-Old Won Wildlife Photographer of the Year With a Dung Beetle
What did a 14-year-old actually photograph?
Oscar Whitfield, a British photographer who lives near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, was on a family game drive in Zambezi National Park when he spotted a dung beetle struggling up a patch of sand, pushing a ball of dung uphill with a line of flies trailing behind. It caught his eye.
Instead of standing over the beetle, he lay down in the dust and put his camera at the same height as the insect. He worked through different angles and compositions before settling on one. The result is Labour of Love: a black-and-white photograph shot with a fast shutter speed and high ISO that captures how hard the beetle works at a job that looks simple from above.
What did he win, and why is it historic?
Labour of Love earned Whitfield, who entered the 11-14 age category, the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 title, the young grand title in the Natural History Museum's competition. The adult title went to Italian photographer Federico Veronesi for The Aftermath, an elephant carrying a deceased calf in Namibia's Huab River Valley.
For the first time in the competition's 62-year history, black-and-white photographs claimed both top spots. The jury praised the young winner's intention and craft: photographing a tiny, constantly moving subject is hard, and the image quietly reveals how much of the cycle of life depends on what people overlook or dismiss. The winning images go on show at the Natural History Museum in London from October 16, 2026, through July 11, 2027.
Why it matters for you
Nobody goes on safari for dung beetles. Whitfield found something extraordinary inside something ordinary, and the technique was humble: get low, get to eye level, try multiple angles. The subject was a few inches off the ground on a family drive, not a bucket-list migration in golden light.
Photographers starting out often believe great subjects are far away or expensive. Labour of Love is proof the winning subject can be the one everyone else walks past. This weekend, point your camera at the thing you would normally ignore, and get down to its level.