The competition honors nature photographers from around the world and is hosted by the British Natural History Museum and the BBC. Professional, amateur, and young photographers can enter their photographs.
The overall winner (and winner of the black and white category) is a shot of lions and their cubs, “The Last Great Photograph,” by American Michael Nichols:
Michael Nichols is an award winning photographer who works as an editor for National Geographic, you can read more about him here.
The winner in the mammal category is “The Mouse, The Moon, and The Mosquito” by Alex Badyaev:
A beautiful shot with the play of light and shadow on such small subjects.
The winner of the birds category is “Herons in Time and Space” by Bence Mate:
The photographer went to great lengths to get an amazing shot of these grey herons in Hungary. He used two timing devices for his camera, one to move the focus and one to adjust aperture. It took 74 nights before the conditions were right to get a photograph of both the herons and the stars in the sky.
The winner of the world in our hands category is “The Price They Pay” by Bruno D’Amicis:
Selling fennec foxes is illegal in Tunisa but it is still widespread. In the above photograph a teenager offers this young fenec fox for sale after it was recently dug out of its den in the desert. Issues like this are important to understand when considering the obstacles many endangered species face from humans.
You can see more winners here, and all of the entries at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year website. Below are some more images that I wanted to share from the competition.
A finalist in the mammals category, “Intimacy,” by Michael Nichols.
A finalist in the birds category is “touche” by Jan van der Greef:
The hummingbird with the long beak is called a sword-billed hummingbird. It is the only bird with a bill longer than its body.
A finalist in the 11 – 14 year old competition title “Owlets United” by Sitara Karthikeyan:
A finalist in the 15 – 17 year old competition titled “Snowbird” by Edwin Sahlin:
Here are a couple of the People’s Choice Award finalists which is a new special award:
“Feel Safe” by Juan Carlos Mimo Perez
“Red Deer and Cranes” by Marek Kosinski
If you like these photos I highly suggest you check out the rest of the finalists and winners at the Natural History Museum’s website.
-Fizz
