2020 Competition Winners
We are delighted to report that our photographers enjoyed success in the international photography competitions of 2020.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition
Pride of place goes to Sergey Gorshkov, who won the main prize at the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in October. His winning image was of a female Siberian tiger hugging an ancient Manchurian fir tree in the Russian Far East. This behaviour actually shows the animal scent-marking. Sergey took this unique image using a remote camera, after 10 months of searching for this elusive endangered big cat.
In the same competition, Indian photographer Ripan Biswas won the portfolio category. His winning portfolio shows a fascinating series of images showing weaver ant behaviour.
GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Another big winner of 2020 was Ben Cranke, who won the bird category of the GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. Here is his winning image showing a great piece of interaction between King penguins and Antarctic fur seal. This captures the moment when the fur seal approaches too close to the penguins and is repelled by a few jabs of a sharp beak.
Main winner in the Glanzlichter competition
Finnish photographer Markus Varesvuo scooped the main prize in the Glanzlichter competition The winning photo was this gorgeous backlit shot of a white-tailed sea eagle fishing in Norway. Markus captured the magic moment when the lighting, the movement of the eagle and the reflexes of the photographer combined to create a wonderful image.
Powerful images from Australia
In the Dutch Nature Photographer of the Year Competition, Jo-Anne McArthur took first place in the Man and Nature section. Her emotive image shows a mother Grey kangaroo with her joey amidst the Australian forest devastated by bushfires. Meanwhile, Doug Gimesy was runner-up in the Our Impact category of the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year Awards. His shot shows a female possum which had been killed trying to cross the road, leaving a live joey in her pouch.
Montier Photo Awards
Bence Mate’s striking image of a bittern grabbing a marsh frog as it emerges from hibernation received an honorable mention in the French Montier Festival Photo Awards. Although the festival itself was cancelled, the photo awards still went ahead. In fact, due to the pandemic, a number of 2020 scheduled photo competitions were deferred until 2021.
Norwegian and Spanish Competition Awards
Two other notable awards from 2020 came to Roy Mangersnes and Mateusz Piesiak. Roy’s aerial shot of waterfalls cascading from a melting glacier in Svalbard was a category winner in the Natur & Foto Norwegian competition. And Mateusz’s glorious wolf pack image from Bialowieza in Poland was honoured in the Spanish MontPhoto awards.
Bird Photographer of the Year Awards
Nick Upton was awarded the Conservation Documentary Award of the Bird Photographer of the Year 2020 for a portfolio of six images, documenting Swift Conservation in the UK. The competition attracted over 15000 entries from over 60 countries. The Conservation Documentary Award is for a set of images telling a bird-related conservation story in a photo-journalistic style. Nick’s portfolio showed how nest boxes, rescue and ringing work are helping to support and monitor swifts in the UK, where numbers have halved in the last 20 years.
Other 2020 Competition Successes
As well as the images shown above, many more of our photographers achieved honourable mentions in 2020’s photo competitions. Here is a selection of the successful images and you can explore the full 2020 Competition Winners Gallery here. Enjoy!
