Pictures: Best Wild Animal Photos of 2012 Announced
By Ker Than, National Geographic News, 23 October 2012.
By Ker Than, National Geographic News, 23 October 2012.
Overall Winner
Emperor penguins rocket toward an exit hole in the ice in the winning picture of the 2012 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, announced last Wednesday.
To get the shot - taken in Antarctica's Ross Sea for a new National Geographic article - photographer Paul Nicklen used polar survival skills he'd learned as a child among the Inuit on Canada's Baffin Island. Nicklen began by lowering himself through a hole in the ice and breathed through a snorkel while waiting for the penguins to return from foraging.
"They soared underwater like fighter jets in a dogfight," Nicklen told National Geographic's Luna Shyr. "Then they'd fly out, land, push down with their bill, and stand up, going back to that slow, waddling bird. It was a privilege to see." (Get more behind-the-scenes details.)
In a statement, competition judge David Doubilet said "Bubble-Jetting Penguins" - which also took top honours in the Underwater Worlds category - "draws us in for a glimpse of the emperor penguin's private world at the end of the Earth. I love this image, because it shows perfectly organized, infinite chaos. My eyes linger over it trying to absorb everything that's going on here." (See more emperor penguin pictures by Paul Nicklen.)
Now in its 48th year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is an "international showcase for the very best nature photography," according to the website for the contest, run by London's Natural History Museum and Wildlife magazine.
Each year an international jury of photographers judges tens of thousands of entries in 18 categories.
Disclosure: Both National Geographic News and National Geographic magazine are parts of the National Geographic Society.
Eric Hosking Portfolio Award
Vladimir Medvedev was driving through Canada's Jasper National Park when he spotted a red deer stag lying in the grass by the highway. The photographer pulled over and swiftly positioned his tripod and snapped this picture just as a truck thundered by.
After taking the picture, Medvedev left as quickly as possible to ensure the deer's peace. "The stag may have been inconspicuous, but I wasn't," he said in a statement. "As long as I stayed there, he was no longer invisible. So I left straight away, so as not to betray his presence."
The shot, titled "Life in the Border Zones," won Medvedev the Eric Hosking Portfolio Award, intended for photographers aged 18 to 26 who submit portfolios of their best work.
Commended, World in Our Hands Award
Workers at the Donggang fish market in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, process frozen shark fins to help meet a growing worldwide demand for shark-fin soup.
"It was sobering to think how many sharks had been killed to produce this pile of fins for a soup that isn't even healthy," photographer Paul Hilton said in a statement about his picture, titled "The End of Sharks." The image was a runner-up for the World in Our Hands Award, focused on the "relationship between people and the environment."
An increasingly popular dish among the middle-class in China, shark-fin soup is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of sharks annually, scientists say. Many sharks are taken solely for their fins and then thrown back in the ocean, where it takes several hours for the fish to die.
Wildlife Photojournalist Award
A Sumatran tiger slips through a fence in India's Bandhavgarh National Park for "A Cry for the Tiger," taken for an article in the December 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. The photo is part of a six-picture essay that won photographer Steve Winter the contest's Wildlife Photojournalist Award.
A former tiger hunter, now employed as a park ranger, advised photographer Steve Winter where to set up his camera trap to get the shot. (See more pictures from Steve Winter's 2012 tiger assignment.)
Sumatran tigers are critically endangered, and some biologists estimate there are fewer than 500 of them left in the wild.
Winner, Wildscapes: "Aurora Over Ice"
To capture this winning picture of green auroras in northern Norway, photographer Thilo Bubek camped out on a frozen lake in subfreezing temperatures and waited.
At first Bubek saw only tiny auroras in the distance. But as the evening wore on, the dancing lights moved closer, until eventually they flashed in vast arcs across the sky.
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, occurs when highly charged electrons from the solar wind interact with oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. The colour varies depending on the nature of the atom (green is from oxygen) and the altitude at which the reaction happens.
Winner, Animals in Their Environment
In a picture titled "Living on Thin Ice," a lone polar bear takes a break on an ice floe around the islands of Svalbard in northern Norway earlier this summer.
"The landscape, the shape of the ice floe, the shape of the bear, and the footprints were just perfect," photographer Ole Jørgen Liodden said in a statement.
Jørgen Liodden said he hopes the picture will help people think about an environment that is disappearing faster than most of us realize, and appreciate the future most polar bears are facing, with ever thinner Arctic ice - or no ice at all. (See more polar bear pictures.)
Winner, Mammals: "Practice Run"
When photographer Grégoire Bouguereau saw a female cheetah catch a Thomson's gazelle calf and bring it – alive - to her cubs, he guessed that a hunting lesson was about to begin.
At first the cubs didn't notice the prey in their midst, Bouguereau said, but as soon as the calf struggled to its feet, the cheetahs' predatory instincts were triggered. "Each cub's gaze locked on to the calf as it made a break for freedom," Bouguereau said in a statement.
Commended, Cold-Blooded Animal
A dour-faced, male dusky jawfish protects its cache of fertilized eggs by carrying them in his mouth.
"He seemed unconcerned by my presence and didn't retreat into his burrow when I started taking pictures," photographer Steven Kovacs, who calls the image "Father’s Little Mouthful," said in a statement. "He couldn't have been more cooperative."
Winner, Animal Portraits
An alligator takes a break in Florida's Myakka River State Park in Sarasota after gorging on fish stranded in shallow pools left behind as water from the river receded. "It wasn't going anywhere in a hurry," photographer Larry Lynch said in a statement.
To get the picture, titled "Warning Night Light," Lynch set up his camera about 20 feet (7 meters) from the alligator. Just after sunset, he set his flash on the lowest setting to capture the "eye shine" in animal's eyes. Like cats, alligators have a structure at the backs of their eyes that reflects light back into the photoreceptor cells to make the most of low light.
Commended, Botanical Realms
The stars of our Milky Way galaxy serve as a backdrop for flowering red bugloss plants in volcanic Teide National Park on Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
Spanish photographer Francisco Mingorance spent several days walking around Tenerife looking for flowers growing in just the right configuration for the shot he had in mind.
For the winning image, called "Spirit Of the Volcano," Mingorance used a ground-level viewpoint to emphasize the height of the plants, which can reach nearly ten feet (three meters). (See more Milky Way pictures.)
Winner, Creative Visions
"A Swirl of Flamingos" - as photographer Klause Nigge calls this image - arcs through an estuary on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula in this winning aerial shot.
Photographer Klause Nigge joined biologists on a flamingo hunt and got the picture by pointing his camera out the door of a plane. "The photography in this situation was all about capturing the beauty of pattern, form, and colour" Nigge said in a statement.
The winning pictures of this year's Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest are on display at London's Natural History Museum through March 3, 2013.
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