Biography

Neil Aldridge has been a visual journalist since 2009.

​His photography has won awards all over the world, including a World Press award, the overall title of European Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism award for environmental storytelling.

​His work has featured in Wildlife Photographer of the Year four times and he has been a winner of the British Wildlife Photography Awards documentary category on three occasions.

You can see a full list of Neil's photo awards here.

Conservation work

Neil has focused his efforts on creating photographs and stories that increase our understanding and awareness of conservation issues and inspire change. His documentary photography has been published by National Geographic, BBC Wildlife magazine, Geo and other leading platforms.

He has also used his fine art wildlife photography to raise funds for conservation causes through exhibitions, events and collaborative fundraising ventures such as Prints for Nature.

He has worked for several leading NGOs in the wildlife and environment sector during his communications career.

Photography projects

His biggest projects documented efforts to save Africa’s wild dogs, pangolins and rhinos, as well as stories from the British countryside about the controversial badger cull debate, pheasant shooting and our relationship with foxes.

His African wild dog book Underdogs spearheaded his efforts to raise funds and awareness for this endangered species. Photographs from this project featured in Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the International Conservation Photography Awards, as well as the iLCP's Extinction exhibition in Colorado in 2010. Through sales of Underdogs, Neil donated funds to wild dog projects in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Filming work

As a freelance camera operator, Neil has experience of filming on the frontline of conservation, capturing natural history sequences for broadcast TV, and producing and editing short films for NGOs.

In 2019, Neil was commissioned to create a series of films for Back from the Brink about England's most threatened wildlife. In 2020 he created a short film making the case for the vaccination of badgers against TB  to combat the government's controversial culling policy.

Rhino conservation & anti-poaching advocate

Neil began using his photography and video work to support Rhino Conservation Botswana in 2016. He helped the charity to promote its work and secure funds for the movement of rhinos to Botswana, as well as their subsequent monitoring and protection.

He has contributed to a number of collaborative projects, including the Photographers Against Wildlife Crime books and the successful Remembering Rhinos and Remembering Leopards books. In 2021, his image was used on the cover of the Remembering African Wild Dogs book and sales of three limited edition fine art prints of the image raised further funds for frontline conservation efforts.

Photo competition judge, festival producer & technical consultant

In 2019, Neil joined the main jury of the World Press Photo contest and served as the Chair of the environment and nature juries. He has judged the British Wildlife Photography Awards, Italy's BioPhoto Contest and, in 2018, he worked with the charity Wildscreen to develop the first Photo Story Panda Award for storytelling. He served as the competition's technical consultant, a role he also carried out in 2015 for the landmark Por el Planeta contest.

Once again in 2018 he worked in partnership with Wildscreen as a Producer on the internationally renowned Wildscreen Festival, managing the festival's photography element.

Lecturer & speaker

As a speaker, Neil has shared his work and experiences at events and talks around the world. He has been a speaker at London's Natural History Museum, Seattle's Burke Museum, South Africa’s WildShots photography festival, Germany's GDT photography festival, the British Birdfair, the Photography Show, Spain's MontPhoto Festival, Belgium's Lowland Festival and Italy's BioPhoto Festival.

As well as talks and events, Neil has been a regular media contributor, appearing as an in-studio guest on radio and television.

Wildlife guide & international athlete

Having studied at the Antares Field Guide Training Centre in South Africa, Neil is a FGASA (Field Guides Association of Southern Africa) qualified guide and ethical field skills and an intimate knowledge of wildlife play a central role in his photography. He runs private tuition workshops and leads tours for Wildlife Worldwide. Neil is also a guest tour leader for C4 Photo Safaris.

Neil also holds a Masters degree in photojournalism from the University of the Arts London and is a contributor to leading wildlife photography and film agencies Nature Picture Library and NatureFootage.

He is a former South African international rower, having competed at a World Cup, African Championships and two World Junior Championships.