Epic revolutionary images made by Wildlife Photographer in 2024
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024 pushed boundaries to create public interest in conservation
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024
The sixtieth Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London, saw nearly 60,000 entries submitted by photographers of all ages and experience levels from 117 countries and territories.
An international panel of industry experts anonymously judged the entries based on their creativity, originality and technical excellence.
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Photo Editor and Chair of the judging panel, Kathy Moran, says, “In this selection, you see species diversity, a range of behaviour and conservation issues.
Natural beauty and challenges
These images represent the evolution of the competition through the years, from pure natural history to photography that fully embraces representation of the natural world – the beauty and the challenges.
It is a powerful selection with which to kickstart a milestone anniversary.”
The Grand Title winner was Shane Gross for his image The Swarm of Life, a captivating photo of inky-black and gold western toad tadpoles swimming among towering plants and algae in an ethereal underwater world in British Columbia, Canada.
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The judges thought that this exceptional image not only demonstrated how beauty in the natural world can be found wherever we look but also perfectly illustrated how animals, plants and the environment are intrinsically linked.
Wildlife Photographer epic migration of tadpoles
“The jury was captivated by the mix of light, energy and connectivity between the environment and the tadpoles,” explains Kathy Moran.
Photonaturalist and Competition Judge Tony Wu said, “The photographer immerses us in an epic migration of tiny tadpoles, a scene that most of us would have never imagined existed.
Young Wildlife Photographer
By putting us in the midst of this movement of millions, they highlight the fact that beauty and magic exist everywhere, even in the most mundane of settings.”
The award for Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024 has gone to Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, who managed to capture Life under dead wood, an extraordinary image of a raspberry-coloured springtail next to a ballooning slime mould.
Challenges for Wildlife Photographer
Measuring just a few millimetres across, these minuscule creatures were found living under a log. But Alexis wasn’t only contending with their small size to take this image, as springtails are notoriously quick.
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Despite these challenges, Alexis managed to snap thirty-six images at slightly differing focal lengths before combining them to make this exquisite image showcasing the tiny life that exists in the soil.
“A photographer attempting to capture this moment not only brings great skill, but incredible attention to detail, patience and perseverance,” says Kathy. “To see a macro image of two species photographed on the forest floor, with such skill, is exceptional.”
Ingo Arndt – Winner: Behaviour, Invertebrates – documents red wood ants’ efficient dismemberment of a blue ground beetle for his image The demolition squad.
Wildlife Photographer lying in wait
“Full of ants” is how Ingo described himself after lying next to the ants’ nest for just a few minutes. Ingo watched as the red wood ants carved an already dead beetle into pieces small enough to fit through the entrance to their nest.
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Photonaturalist and Competition Judge Tony Wu comments, “the stark red of the protagonist juxtaposed with the blue and green of the beetle and background pulls me directly into the heart of the action.
I can feel – almost hear – the energy of the swarm while I marvel at the single-minded dedication of the lone ant scaling to the summit of the beetle.”
Matthew Smith – Winner: Underwater – photographed Under the waterline of a curious leopard seal beneath the Antarctic ice.
It was late in the day, and Matthew had to work quickly in the fading light. He squeezed into his drysuit and quietly slipped into the waters of Paradise Harbour on the Antarctic Peninsula with his camera.
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To get this split image, Matthew used a specially made dome port he designed for the front of his underwater housing. This put more distance between the lens and the water, making the waterline thinner and less obtrusive.
Close Encounters captured
It was his first encounter with a leopard seal. The young seal made several close, curious passes. “When it looked straight into the lens barrel, I knew I had something good.”
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Jack Zhi – Winner in the Behaviour, Birds – for his image Practice makes perfect. “I enjoyed watching a young falcon practising hunting skills on a butterfly above its sea cliff nest.”
Jack has been visiting this area for the past eight years, observing the constant presence of one of the birds and photographing the chicks. On this day, it was a challenge to track the action because the birds were so fast.
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For Editor, Writer and Competition Judge Roz Kidman Cox, this is a “joyful, stupendous shot. The young peregrine is perfection in plumage and pose, and the play-hunting butterfly moment is an extraordinary catch. But this is no chance shot, rather a picture framed by an artist intimate with falcons.”
Alberto Roman Gomez – winner in the 10 Years and Under for his image Free as a bird – contrasts a delicate stonechat bird with a hefty chain.
Alberto watched this young bird from the window of his father’s car at the edge of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park.
He found it tricky to photograph as it was quickly flying back and forth, gathering insects.
The summer light emphasised the echoes of colour between the rusty metal, the bird’s plumage and the dry grassland beyond.
Photographic composition of image
To Alberto, the stonechat displayed a sense of ownership, as if it were a young guardian overseeing its territory. He highlighted this through the composition of the image.
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Wildlife Photographer, Biologist and Competition Judge Chien Lee comments, “many experienced wildlife photographers often shun the idea of including human-made objects in their shot, but here they form a beautiful framework for the bird and add context to its suburban habitat”.
Jiri Hrebicek – Winner: Natural Artistry for The artful crow – creates an impressionistic vision of a perching crow.
Jiri often visits his local park in Basel as it’s an ideal place to experiment with camera techniques.
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In winter, large flocks of crows arrive to roost in the treetops.To create this painterly effect of a sitting crow, Jiri deliberately moved his camera in different directions while using a long shutter speed.
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Kathy Moran remarks, “Elegant and haunting are the words that come to mind when I look at this photograph. The movement is just enough to give it an edge, but not enough to take away from the mood created by the light and the perfect placement of the bird.”
Fortunato Gatto – Winner: Plants and Fungi for Old man of the glen – comes across a gnarled old birch tree adorned with pale ‘old man’s beard’ lichens.
Fortunato often visits the Glen Affric ancient pinewoods alone to lose himself in its intricate, chaotic, timeless beauty. The pale ‘old man’s beard’ lichens suggest that it’s an area with little air pollution.
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Photographer, Cinematographer and Competition Judge Luciano Candisani felt that “this image is a beautiful example of how the good positioning of elements in a composition can add dynamism even to an aesthetic scene.
The colours are beautiful, and the atmosphere is very interesting, but it’s the diagonal branch that directs the eye into the beautiful image.”
Thomas Peschak – Winner: Photojournalist Story Award for Among the Tree – documents the relationship between endangered Amazon River dolphins, also known as botos or pink river dolphins, and the people who share their watery home.
An Amazon River dolphin explores a flooded forest just outside Anavilhanas National Park, upstream from Manaus in Brazil.
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The Amazon River dolphin is one of two freshwater dolphin species living in the Amazon and Orinoco basins. Only this species has evolved to explore the seasonally flooded forest habitat.
Samual Stone – Behaviour: Birds for Precious Rocks – watches as a jackdaw brings stones to its nest.
Jackdaws are known for their intelligence, and this one, in London’s Bushy Park, appears to be no exception, having seemingly arranged the stones in size order.
Shreyovi Mehta – Runner-Up, 10 Years and Under for In the Spotlight – finds two Indian peafowl ‘looking perfect for a picture’.
Shreyovi was walking in the forest with her parents when she spotted this scene. She ran back to her dad, who was carrying the cameras, then got down on the ground to take her photograph from a low angle.
William Fortescue – Behaviour: Mammals for Stormy Scene – uses a backdrop of storm clouds lit by the setting sun to show mating lions.
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It was the rainy season when William visited the Serengeti National Park. He watched the lions mate several times before the female broke it off.
It wasn’t until William viewed an enlarged image that he noticed the saliva trails and the explosion of insects from the male’s mane.
Xingchao Zhu – Behaviour: Mammals for Moonlight Hunter – comes face to face with a Pallas’s cat as the moon sets.
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Xingchao tracked a group of Pallas’s cats on the freezing plateau of Inner Mongolia for several days during the Chinese New Year in February 2023. Shortly before dawn, Xingchao managed to make eye contact with this cat, just as it had caught a small bird.
Jose Manuel Grandio – Behaviour: Mammals for Twist and Jump – braves below-zero temperatures to witness a stoat jumping high into the air above the snow.
Winter is Jose’s favourite season for photography. When he spotted this stoat jumping mid-air on the last day of his trip, he saw this performance as an ‘expression of exuberance’ as the small mammal hurled itself about in a fresh fall of snow.
Robin Darius Conz – Urban Wildlife for Tiger in Town – watches a tiger on a hillside against the backdrop of a town where forests once grew.
Robin was following this tiger as part of a documentary team filming the wildlife of the Western Ghats.
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He used a drone to watch the tiger explore its territory for several hours before it settled in this spot.
This image sums up many problems facing the world’s tigers today. Kathy Moran says, “we initially revel in seeing a tiger seemingly at ease, out in the open, but as you move through the frame reality hits hard.
Where’s the forest, what’s happened to the habitat? No tiger should ever be considered urban!”
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These are only a handful of the 100 captivating photographs from around the world at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Natural History Museum, London.
Dr Doug Gurr, Director of the Museum, says, “Over the decades, Wildlife Photographer of the Year has pushed the boundaries of wildlife photography as the competition evolved alongside technological advancements.
The competition remains true to one of its founding objectives: ‘to enhance the prestige of wildlife photography in the hope that ultimately the awards would benefit animals by creating greater public interest in them and in that all-important topic – conservation’.”
Text & Photos Natural History Museum
