Nature Talks has announced the winners of the Nature Photographer of the Year 2023 competition! The top honor goes to Jacquie Matechuk from Canada for her captivating photograph “He Looks to the Heavens”, capturing a bear on a tree. Marco Gaiotti, the head of the jury, talks about the winning image: “Spanish moss is always a beautiful, very photogenic subject, and often alone they are able to offer visually interesting compositions, both from the point of view of color and texture. The silhouette of an Andean bear crossing the Spanish moss hanging from an ancient tree is something that goes beyond the most vivid dreams of a nature photographer.”
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“Amur leopard. The photo was taken in the national park ‘Land of the Leopard’ for a photo project. I like to photograph a leopard in the snow.”
Members of this year’s judging panel were:
“Mother coastal brown bears (Ursus arctos gyas) and cubs are constantly on the lookout for male bears that will kill the cubs to mate with the mother to pass on their own genes. To see a bear cub is special, but to see THREE with one mother is extra special. I had the privilege to encounter these three little ones in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in Alaska, USA. While with a professional bear guide, I followed them with their mother on the mudflats as they dug for clams, hoping to catch them in a line. For several days, I trudged through the thick, sticky mud in hopes of this shot. On the last day, I saw the cubs start to line up. I dropped to one knee into the mud and hovered my massive lens over the mudflat to blur out the foreground, creating an other-worldly feel. Patience can pay off, and I was thrilled to capture this behavior, especially with all three in step with one another. Back home and ecstatic to have achieved my goal, I, unfortunately, heard that all three cubs didn’t survive the upcoming weeks. Heartbroken to hear this, it reminded me to never take anything for granted and to enjoy nature’s beauty as much as possible in that moment because you never know what happens next.”
The NPOTY contest also supports NGOs or other organizations who step forward to help nature. With this year’s edition, they supportPhotographers Against Wildlife Crime™.
“Life as an underwater wildlife photographer mostly involves trying to very gently accustom animals to our presence. As photography through water requires extreme proximity, we are usually unable to completely conceal ourselves from the wildlife and cannot rely on long lenses or hides to aid in fieldcraft.Blissfully, the California sea lion pups at this marine protected area require no such strategies, as they actively seek out interaction…curiously checking out human visitors with playful enthusiasm. Placing myself at the end of this underwater cavern beneath a sea lion colony, I had to wait less than a minute before this pup came to investigate.Location: Espiritu Santo National Park, Baja California Sur, Mexico.”
“This image of a paper nautilus with jellyfish was shot off Anilao in Balayan Bay, Batangas, Philippines with a 60mm lens during a Blackwater dive. During this type of dive, which is performed over very deep water at night, divers search for tiny critters with handheld torches while circling a lit downline. Towards the end of my dive at approximately 10-15 meters of depth, I spotted this paper nautilus or Argonaut, which is often seen riding on the back of a jellyfish. This paper nautilus is a female as it features a thinly secreted coiled shell or egg case which resembles a hat. These unique cephalopods rise towards the surface at night to feed and in this case, aerate their eggs.”
“One of the reasons I am so happy this photo won is because the story behind it is very interesting. One of my lifelong dreams was to see polar bears in the wild. Last year I set out for Churchill, Manitoba in Canada to photograph polar bears for the first time. I had a very productive trip, taking thousands of photos of polar bears and foxes. I was very happy with the whole trip. When it came time to leave Churchill, there was a slight problem. A massive blizzard had fallen on Churchill with 30-50 mph winds and freezing temperatures. All flights were canceled that day. Everyone was worrying about what to do, how to get home, connecting flights, etc… Our guides quickly told us to get in the vehicles because they spotted a bear along the Hudson Bay coast. All worries about missing the flight just vanished. Driving in blizzard conditions, we approached the polar bear sitting in the snow in front of a sand dune covered with snow. We all got out of the vehicles and started taking photos. The wind was so strong it was impossible to handhold or even use the tripod without having the camera shake! I ended up using the rearview mirror and the body of the truck we were in to keep the camera steady as I pressed myself and the camera against the truck body as hard as I could. I noticed every 10 -15 minutes the bear would rise out of the snow and shake off. I tried different shutter speeds to get the right feel for the photo. I found that a very low shutter speed blurred the fast-moving snow and made the background more uniform.”
“The gecko sits in the lamp. Light attracts insects, which are the gecko’s food source. Even though light pollution kills countless insects every night, this image shows an interesting interplay in which animals benefit from our civilization through adaptation.”
“This image of a pink flamingo was taken in the Camargue last winter. At certain times of the year and in certain places, the water level drops and the substrate becomes denser. Despite this, Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) like to come and look for food in this muddy water. It’s a great opportunity to observe and photograph them, because when they lift their heads out of the water, a thin film of mud clings to their plumage for a few seconds. It’s an image I’d been hoping to capture for a long time, and on this particular day, all the conditions were right: clear skies, light cloud cover, backlighting and, of course, the flamingos and the right level of water! Naturally, I called this image ’the pen and inkwell’.”
“On my daily way to school, I always passed this tree where in autumn some long-eared owls spend their day. I have been photographing them after school for a long time. One day there was just one owl sitting perfectly in the birch. The vertical camera movement (ICM) creates white lines of the overexposed sky, which support the almost melancholy hanging branches of the birch as a pictorial element. The setting sun shines golden through the yellow-green foliage in some places. Because The Owl and its branch are darker than the rest of the tree, they didn’t appear blurred.”
“When one travels on a photographic safari to Africa, the temptation is to focus on the megafauna species such as elephants, lions, leopards, and cheetahs. But there are other smaller, less glamorous and far less photographed species present. Some of these are nocturnal and rarely photographed such as this Scrub Hare. Their most distinctive feature are their giant ears allowing for acute hearing which helps them to evade predators. The ears are not especially photogenic with regular front lighting but take on a life of their own when backlit such as this individual at a water hole in southern Kenya.”
“I am keen on penguins, and my dream is to have pictures of all (17-18) penguin species in the world. On January 2023 I was on the journey heading to Antarctica. We started our trip from New Zealand and on the way heading to the Ross Sea, I was lucky to see six different penguin species on a few islands of the Subantarctic area.Sailing carefully through drift ice in the middle of Ross Sea, I noticed that a few Adelie penguins were swimming in the sea behind and on both sides of our ship. They either swam in the water or run on the ice floes, which was funny, but also amazing to see. The left side of the ship was luckily in shadow where it was possible to see underwater without a polarized filter. On the deck of our ship, I followed a penguin that swam occasionally just a little bit underwater. This wonderful show lasted only two or three minutes, but I was lucky to have many pictures of this lovely bird and of this rare photo situation. Converting this picture from the original RAW to jpg format I was sure the black and white version looked much better than the same picture in colors.”
“In March 2022, after three years of planning, I went to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic. I and four others traveled across this extreme environment to find and photograph arctic wolves, musk ox, and other arctic wildlife. We experienced cold well below -50 degrees but came home with images of arctic hares and little else. In March 2023 I tried again. On this trip, not only did we find arctic wolves, but I also had this incredible experience with a herd of musk ox.I lay flat on the ground, as the temperature dropped below -40, watching this herd charge but from quite a distance away. Knowing they could trample me to death, as some musk ox bulls can weigh up to 400kg each, it was a real test of nerve as they approached me at full speed. To make sure they did not know I was there, I continued to stay flat to the ground. In order to capture the image I removed my down gloves and was just wearing very a thin glove base layer. At this point, my hands were so cold I could not physically use my camera finger to press the shutter so I was forced to take the image with my middle finger. As they got closer, I quickly stood up and, thankfully, the herd changed direction and ran past me. It all happened so quickly that I did not have time to check my shutter speed, which had dropped to just 1/250. But luckily this image – out of many images I had taken – was sharp.”
“I was used to photographing the garden dormice in my hometown near Frankfurt for years and I have spent several evenings and nights outside, just watching these little hyperactive animals climbing down the ladder of my attic when the sun sets down and the city begins to sleep. The science is still not clear, why the Garden dormice population is decreasing so they have become very rare. The animals are used to the lights and they don’t care about it anymore.”
“For many years, I have followed the amphibian migration as I did this year. In spring, the amphibians migrate en masse to the water to mate, as was also the case this year. Carefully I started searching among the stems of the growing water lilies and with success. Carefully I approached the salamander and took a whole series of photos. After a while, the salamander had had enough and made its way to the surface. Quickly I took a few more photos of the silhouette of the swimming salamander and on reflection, the photo was ideal for making a double exposure in the camera.”
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Blue atmosphere and red moon. Standing up early before sunrise allows you to experience the magical awakening of animals. The blackbird is one of the earliest animals to wake.”
“Among the many stunning encounters on my last harping trip in Costa Rica, one of the luckiest was certainly with a black-speckled palm pit viper (Bothriechis nigroviridis). During a walk in the cloud forest of the Cordillera de Talamanca, after hours of maniacal searching, I finally spotted one individual on the ground basking in the sun. It was extremely difficult to spot the camouflaged viper in the colorful and dense pattern of mosses and epiphytes. From a zenithal point of view, I framed the twisted coils of the snake, enhancing the details of each scale and the resulting geometrical motif. The picture was taken in situ, without any manipulation or disturbance for the animal.”
“In the spring in May, the water lilies start to grow quite a bit but the stems are not so close together yet. Ideal to look for fish hiding between the stems then. This photo was taken in the freshwater lake De Melle near Turnhout (Antwerp) where there is a large population of water lilies.After a while, I noticed this large pike among the stems which I approached carefully and thus was able to take a whole series of pictures.Taking pictures of pike is very easy as they have no natural predators in the lake and stay calm if you approach them carefully which is also the case with this pike.”
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“Wild Snow Leopard male, Spiti Valley, India. We found this large Snow Leopard male as he was looking for a cover during a snowstorm. His camouflage in the environment was simply amazing, If he hadn’t moved we would never have noticed him! I loved the textures and zig-zag shape of the snow-covered rocks and wanted to include it all in the composition even though I could get a tighter shot of the Leopard using a longer lens and a teleconverter. For me wildlife photography is firstly about capturing the Animal in the context of the environment.”
“The red wicker fields, in Cañamaras, Cuenca, Spain, are a very unique visual spectacle. The land is not very large (just a small region), but it gives photography lovers a wealth of colors in autumn, being a great inspiration for the imagination.I took the photograph using the double exposure technique. One photo of the wicker fields and another photo of a sunset sky, specifically a cloud. With the double exposure, I managed to make it look like an unreal dense fog over the red fields.”
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“I wanted to take pictures that evening. But without light, it’s difficult. So I went to a pedestrian bridge that offered a direct view of one of the main traffic intersections in our city. There were many spiders on the railing of the bridge. Using an old analog lens, I photographed the spider in front of the colorful lights of the city intersection with its many cars.The special shape of the lights comes from the fact that I had previously unscrewed the lens and turned one of the three lenses inside before screwing it back together. This way the lens is only sharp in the exact center and everything else becomes a twisting effect.”
“During a bird-ringing trip with my friends to the Hungarian Tápióság, I saw these roe deer on the top of a hill next to us. As the sun was setting, my immediate thought was to capture a backlit photo, with very high contrast. There was not much time to make it happen, as in a few minutes all the light disappeared. The deer started walking around from one group, but they split up very soon. Just as I thought I missed the opportunity for an interesting photo, they regrouped again for a few moments.”
“I was photographing beautiful demoiselles along the “Rode beek” (Red Creek) in Limburg near Vlodrop. On the ground, I found the damaged wing of a beautiful demoiselle. I took it home where I had every opportunity to take a macro photo. I used a macro lens and two intermediate rings. First I wanted to use the studio flash but the backlight made the beautiful blue color disappear and the wing turned brown. Then I lit the wing diagonally from the front with a soft torch. It turned out there were lots of colors besides the beautiful blue color in that wing. For me, the image became more than a wing but one could see a spaceship or an apartment building in it. The damage, the hole in the wing, emphasizes transience and mortality.”
“With my nature photography club, 5 people from Limburg, I spent a few days in the province of Zeeland. We wanted to photograph the sunrise at Flaauwershaven near Kerkwerve so we were early on the scene. The sun did indeed rise very nicely. But then I looked over my shoulder and saw that the windows of the nature reserve’s information hut behind me had a strong orange glow. It looked like it was on fire! One window was broken and you could see the bird information cards through it. I found that very special. And so I took a bird photo without any living birds in it.”
“The image is a small example of the colors and reliefs that can be observed on all the slopes and mountains of the Puna, a large territory located more than 3,500 meters high in the North of Argentina, in the province of Jujui. The minerals of its mountains together with the native vegetation make it possible to observe incredibly beautiful colors and shapes. The image was taken in Puna de Atacama-Jujui-Argentina, where for ten days I toured its spectacular mountains.I made the trip only with a single camera and a single lens (Nikon D5- Nikon 300 f4) trying to make my movement the zoom that I did not have. I also dispensed with the blue sky in 90% of my photographs, because what I wanted to capture above all were shapes and colors and reliefs.”
“I have been traveling the world since I was a teenager, pursuing long-term photography projects. Mine is not a search for the perfect shot, but rather a search for the perfect emotion that gives birth to a good image. As it happens, this photograph was taken a few kilometers from home. We often focus on big issues far from where we live, losing sight of precious details around us. It was spring 2022 when I took this image which is part of a wide-ranging project, born completely spontaneously from a very strong emotional need within me. I had recently suffered a bad, false, and deceptive situation, which had completely destroyed me. So I returned to the natural pond located within the Foreste Casentinesi National Park, a place I have been frequenting for some years. That time I was able to see beyond the usual images. The pond is located within an old-growth forest with the oldest centuries-old chestnut and beech trees in Europe. Numerous amphibians and insects live in the body of water, but also very interesting aquatic plants such as the Potamogeton Natas immortalized in this photo. Each image contains a sensation, a feeling, this was the objective of the project, which lasted about two months.”
“Dandelions have a recognizable appearance. They are tall, and straight with a fluffy head. They grow close to each other and often form symmetrical and well-composed rows. Dandelions in the image are an example of such formation. Applying the in-camera multi-exposure function helped me to emphasize the concepts of rhythmicity and arrangement. When I photograph plants and flowers in particular, I am always trying to keep in mind their character and the associations my subjects evoke.This image is created using the in-camera multi-exposure function. Multi-exposure is often thought of as a toy that allows you to create fun special effects. However, it is a powerful tool for self-expression. It allows you to show in a single frame what you feel or think, but what you can’t technically capture in a single shot.”
“After a cold period at the end of November 2022, the ice froze solid on the small freshwater lake in Enebakk, 25 km south of Oslo. Vågvann is a lake with a low water level and good water circulation. A few days later the weather changed, and a thin layer of snow covered the ice. It became milder, the ice expanded and formed cracks with moisture over large parts of the snow-covered ice surface. The dark streaks of moisture became more and more numerous and some were as wide as roads. In recent years, this phenomenon has become more common than before. Climate change is causing several changes in weather from cold to mild. Frost, rain, and snow create unstable winter conditions, which can give us more opportunities to get similar conditions. For a photographer like me who is constantly looking for patterns in nature, I was very happy when I found this subject, although, of course, I am worried about the climate changes we are experiencing.The conditions were perfect with cloudy weather and little wind. It was just a matter of getting the drone up in the air and start looking for exciting compositions. Found this little island with snow-covered pine trees where the stripes had worked well together forming half circles around the island. Took many pictures this day and everything was constantly changing. The next day there were far too many stripes in the ice to find any interesting shapes and patterns to photograph. It is difficult to transfer experiences we have to others when we are out with a camera.”
“The photo was taken in the Campo Imperatore plain, a vast plain located in the heart of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park, in the Abruzzo region, Italy. This area is renowned for its natural beauty, especially during the winter and autumn seasons when the landscape transforms into a large theater capable of offering breathtaking shows. The shapes of the first snow settling on dark earthy ground can create an incredibly charming and magical image. At that moment I immediately had the feeling of being faced with a unique scenario. The contrast between the pure white of the snow and the color of the earth below created spectacular visual compositions. Reliefs, depressions, and details of the terrain emerged clearly, creating unique and exciting lines and geometric patterns. A sort of three-dimensional vision of shapes and surfaces that conveyed pure emotions to the eye of the camera.”
“The photo was taken in Hungary last January. There are saline lakes near my hometown, which were frozen due to the cold. Some snow had fallen on them the previous night. However, during the day, the temperature rose above zero, causing the snow to start melting. As a result, fascinating formations formed on the ice. I planned to go out and start flying my drone above the lakes, searching for interesting shapes. I was amazed because wherever I turned the drone, I found great compositions. Suddenly, I noticed a dozen Greater White-fronted Geese flying beneath my drone; they couldn’t have been very far because the footage was almost unedited. Reflexively, I took a series of shots. At that moment, I knew it was an irreplaceable moment. I immediately reviewed the shots, and out of the series, only this one picture was acceptable. I was fortunate that the sun was shining brightly because it allowed me to use a short shutter speed. This way, the geese remained sharp, without any motion blur. I was thrilled that both the composition and the birds were in the perfect position.”
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