I was very familiar with the winning wolf image because an almost identical image (by the same photographer) was highly commended in another prominent wildlife photography competition. I remember discussing the merits of that first wolf photo on another forum at that time. Here's the image from the other competition;
Photo Competition Winners - Nature photography - images from the Wild Wonders of Europe.
what's interesting is that the WPOTY rules state:
"A picture that has won a prize in another competition, which receives more than 500 images, is not eligible for entry. The competition is looking for images which are new and unique and if a picture has been widely seen before it may count against it during the judging process."
Now technically it didn't win the other competition but was highly commended, but it was certainly a familiar image to those of us interested in these sorts of competitions. It is a great image though, so I have no problems in that regard.
There are some very nice images in WPOTY but I'm also perhaps a little underwhelmed. But then maybe our expectations are becoming unrealistic. Fergus' image is nice, although I'm not sure we can continue to call him 'our' Fergus as he hasn't visited WAB for some months.
Matt