{"id":12486,"date":"2022-01-10T16:58:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T16:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/?p=12486"},"modified":"2022-01-24T11:38:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T11:38:53","slug":"2021-competition-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naturepl.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/10\/2021-competition-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"2021 Competition Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

NPL photographers were 2021 Competition Winners in many of the leading photo competitions across the globe. Here we celebrate not only the winners, but also the runners-up, finalists and commended images.<\/p>\n

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Will Burrard Lucas won the main Prize of Honour award in the 25th Spanish MontPhoto competition<\/a> with his ghostly long exposure shot of a leopard. Will told us more about how he achieved this image:<\/p>\n

“I spent a year photographing leopards at night using my Camtraptions camera trap system in Laikipia, Kenya. I had between five and eight camera traps running at all times, which I moved around as I learnt more about the leopards’ habits. One of the most ambitious images I tried was to expose a leopard with stars in the sky at night. The technique required a long exposure time to expose the stars and a flash to expose the foreground. On this night, a large male leopard came past while the moon was still above the horizon which resulted in this ghostly image.”<\/p>\n

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Vogelwarte Overall Winner<\/h3>\n

Markus Varesvuo from Finland won the main prize in the\u00a0 Swiss Vogelwarte competition<\/a>, with his striking image of a male black woodpecker. Markus told us the story behind the image:<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a vision of catching the black woodpecker from above as it searches for food on the tree trunk, a less common perspective for images of this species. I worked on the project on several days during the midwinter days in Kuusamo, Northeastern Finland. Without a doubt it is my favourite from last year and I was very happy to learn of its success in the Vogelwarte competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Markus took this photo on a cloudy December day providing plenty of light but little contrast. He used a wide angle lens on a camera attached to the tree trunk and a remote control shutter release.<\/p>\n

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Close-up Photographer of the Year<\/h3>\n

Norwegian Pal Hermansen’s image entitled Insect Diversity won both the Insect category and the main prize in the third Close Up Photographer of the Year competition<\/a>. Pal revealed how he created this image:<\/p>\n

“In the autumn of 2020, I discovered that one of the lamps on my house in Norway had a defect and had acted as a light trap for insects. After emptying the lamp and spreading the contents onto a large light-table, I used a weak flashlight to light the details from above. My aim was to express the chaos and diversity of this discovery, but also to find some kind of composition. To me, it\u2019s a visual reminder of the important and extreme diversity of animals around us that we take for granted.”<\/p>\n

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Golden Turtle Photographer of the Year<\/h3>\n

Magnus Lundgren was named overall winner of this competition, having achieved second place in three different categories.<\/p>\n