Mammals

1st Award  MontPhoto Honor Award

A flock of walruses (Odobenus rosmarus) gathered on a beach at the point Sarstangen on the island of Prins Karl's Forland in Svalbard. They did not take notis of me or my fellow photographers as we slowly approached them, and were actually curious when I flew a small drone a few meters up to get this view.

Borneo is a photographer's paradise I really enjoyed shooting in this beautiful part of the world. But it was equally challenging as reaching a few spots in Borneo is too difficult. Especially this image was taken with lot of risk as I was in middle of water and there was a high chance of crocodile in that river however I was happy with the end result of a mature male Bornean orangutan posing (Pongo pygmaeus).

We came across a lone Eastern Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) out in the forest, sitting with its back to us. Everyone moved round to the far side to try and get a better view of the face. I stayed my ground and was rewarded when the chimp eventually got up, turned and walked straight past me. I used my camera's pop out screen to get it low to the ground for a better perspective.

Last seconds of life. A mother plains zebra (Equus burchel) makes one final attempt to separate her foal from its pursuant, a Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), but fails.

I managed to capture this photo of an urban red fox (Vulpes vulpes) walking in front of a modern building just after a heavy downpour of rain. I needed to get as low to the ground as possible to make the most of the striking reflections. I decided to use a 85mm at f2 so the foreground and background were as soft and creamy as possible, creating the abstract feel to the shot I was looking for.

Towards the end of October, it is possible to stumble into well-nourished groups of male Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica) in the Sierra de Guadarrama. On a clear dawn and after spotting a pair of large males, I stood myself in front of the backlit rock to be able to show the sun perfectly counterbalanced between their horns.

It is not easy to find a Brown-throated three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) showing some sort of activity, and even less occupying such a unique Cecropia tree, which allowed me to use its fanciful branches to benefit the composition. I waited for the subject to position itself in a part of the tree that would allow it to be shown in its surrounding, trying to combine photographic and pictorial language in the same image.