Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Without the Crowds

An exhibition with a long pedigree

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is one of the longest running photography competitions in the world, with roots in the 1960s, and the Natural History Museum has been at its centre for decades. Entries arrive from professionals and amateurs across the globe, a panel of judges works through them over many months, and the winners are announced each autumn, after which the exhibition opens in South Kensington before a touring version travels abroad.

What makes it more than a pretty show is its range. There are close portraits of animals and landscapes of enormous scale, but also categories for urban wildlife, for behaviour caught in a split second, and for photojournalism about the pressures on the natural world. Some of the most memorable images each year are the uncomfortable ones, and the exhibition does not shy away from them.

Light boxes in a darkened room

The images are shown as backlit panels in a dimmed gallery, which gives each photograph a glow that print on paper cannot match. Beside every picture sits a caption explaining where it was taken, how, and often how long the photographer waited for the moment, and those captions are half the pleasure. Reading them turns a wall of beautiful pictures into a sequence of short stories about patience and luck.

The room is designed for slow looking, and it rewards it. A visitor who moves from panel to panel at a steady pace, reading as they go, will usually find that an hour or so has passed without much sense of time, which is worth bearing in mind when planning whatever comes after. Two people looking together tend to stop at different pictures, and comparing favourites on the way out is part of the fun.

Reading the winning images

Each edition names an overall winner, and it is worth seeking out that image first, then letting the rest of the room unfold at its own pace. Many visitors find the smaller categories more memorable than the headline award: a moment of animal behaviour caught on a city street, a portfolio built over years in the same patch of forest, a photograph that makes a hard point about habitat without a word of commentary.

Standing back from a panel before reading its caption, then stepping in to read it, is a small habit that doubles what each picture gives you. There is also a People's Choice award, voted on by the public from a shortlist, and choosing a favourite for it is a pleasant excuse for a friendly disagreement on the way to the exit.

When to go quietly

The exhibition is busiest in its opening weeks, at weekends and during school holidays, when the whole museum fills with families. October half-term and the stretch between Christmas and New Year are the most crowded periods of all. The calmest visits tend to fall on weekday afternoons in term time, once the morning school groups have moved on, and later in the exhibition's run, after the first wave of interest has passed.

Entry to the museum's permanent galleries is free, but this exhibition is ticketed separately, with timed entry slots. Booking a slot online in advance, for mid-afternoon on a weekday, does more than anything else to make the visit feel unhurried. Prices, dates and opening times are published on the museum's own website and are revised for each new edition, so look there rather than relying on last year's details.

The museum also runs occasional adult evening openings, when the galleries stay open late and the atmosphere changes completely. If one falls during the exhibition's run, it is worth looking at what is planned.

Getting in without the main queue

The museum has two public entrances. The grand one on Cromwell Road, beneath Alfred Waterhouse's terracotta frontage, opens into Hintze Hall and the blue whale skeleton suspended from its ceiling. The side entrance on Exhibition Road leads in through the Earth galleries. On busy days queues form at both, and it is worth glancing at each before committing, since one often moves faster than the other.

From South Kensington station, the Victorian pedestrian tunnel runs beneath the street almost to the museum's side door, useful on a wet afternoon and a sensible place to meet a companion when rain is forecast. Name the exit you will wait at, since the tunnel has more than one.

An afternoon built around it

The exhibition makes an ideal centrepiece for a girlfriend experience afternoon: an easy shared activity, plenty to talk about and a natural pause afterwards. A coffee in the museum or across the road, a look at the whale in Hintze Hall on the way out, then a walk down to Bute Street or Old Brompton Road as the light goes, is a plan that needs almost no managing.

Two hours at £500 covers the exhibition and a coffee without rushing. Three hours at £700 adds a walk and an early drink, while choosing the dinner date, four hours at £900, lets the afternoon run on into a proper meal. You give her the fee yourself at the start of the afternoon, before joining the queue for your slot, and every length from ninety minutes to an overnight appears on the rates page.

When you write, give the date and the time printed on your exhibition ticket, and the desk will set the meeting a quarter of an hour earlier, so that coats and bags can be dealt with before your slot begins.

Companions with a photographer's eye

Cindy spent years behind a camera and notices light before anything else in a room, so she will have a view on how each photograph was lit before she has read the caption. Danielle lives in South Kensington, knows which galleries open late and keeps a notebook of single lines worth remembering, and a good caption often ends up in it. Both are filed among the late twenties companions in the collection.

Luna, who carries a small film camera and shoots reflections and strangers' hands, makes a livelier alternative, the kind of companion who will defend her own favourite panel all the way to dinner.