With the ability to capture imagination and evoke emotions, photographs can tell us stories about nature that words alone cannot convey. The award-winning works from the TTL Nature Photography Contest 2023 demonstrate that when it comes to nature, a picture is worth a thousand words.
This marks the second year of the TTL Nature Photography Contest, the world’s premier online nature photography resource, featuring thousands of photographers from around the globe.
Over 8,000 photos from nature photographers worldwide entered this year’s competition for a prize pool of $1,840. In addition to the Grand Prize and TTL Young Nature Photographer of the Year, the contest awarded prizes in eight categories: Animal Behavior, Camera Trap, Landscape, Small World, Night Sky, Underwater, Urban Wildlife, and Wildlife Portrait.
The contest’s top award was given to photographer Thomas Vijayan from Canada for his hauntingly beautiful image of the Austfonna ice cap, reflecting the impact of global warming on the world’s third-largest ice cap. This piece, consisting of 36 images stitched together, also won first place in the Landscape category.
Audrey Granger, manager of Nature TTL, commented: “The photograph shows nature in its most urgent melting state. The vibrant colors of the towering waterfall are tied to the reality created. The stark reality is that this image illustrates the impact of global warming on sea ice, where ice is melting at alarming rates.”
The winner of the TTL Young Nature Photographer of the Year 2023 was Lucy Monckton from the United Kingdom, who bravely photographed the “Finding Home” image capturing the process of a bee swarm relocating. This piece also helped her win the Under 17 category. Monckton shared: “Relocation is a natural process that occurs when a bee colony becomes too large for its home; the queen leaves with a few bees to find a new home.”
The winning image in the Animal Behavior category is a photograph of a polar bear patiently waiting for a seal to poke its head out of a hole in Svalbard, Norway, by photographer Florian Ledoux from France.
The photo “Traffic Jam” is a striking image that seems to belong to another world, but it actually depicts a spider in a very familiar environment: a pedestrian bridge in Ibbenüren, Germany. The lighting around the spider comes from the traffic lights behind it, as indicated by the title, making the spider appear suspended in a ball of turquoise light. This photo by photographer Simone Baumeister from Germany won second place in the Urban Wildlife category.
The runner-up in the Under 17 category is a photo of a deer on a hill. The shadows on the hill create a quite typical and beautiful image. The author, Ákos Őrsi from Hungary, stated: “In the sunset, I spotted these deer on top of a small hill. They were quite far away, but I managed to create a nice composition.”
A jaguar captured climbing over a crumbled wall separating the forest from the town in Quintana Roo, Mexico. This image won in the Camera Trap category. The author, Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar from Mexico, shared: “This jaguar had been seen before, so I decided to set up a camera trap at the broken wall leading into the forest. I positioned the flash to ensure the jaguar’s shadow was reflected on the wall behind. Poaching, deforestation, and habitat fragmentation have led to increased interactions with humans, and most of these encounters do not end well for these big cats.”
The runner-up in the Wildlife Portrait category is a photo of a great blue heron’s shadow in water reflecting traffic lights in Dunedin, Florida, USA. The author, Robert Gloeckner from the USA, said: “I focused on the green background of the bird and used intentional camera movement to create a fading perspective for this image.”
The runner-up in the Camera Trap category is a photo of a starling and its chicks in a nest at a friend’s bathroom window. The author, Igor Mikula from Slovakia, noted: “I watched their behavior for hours and tried to ensure my camera did not disturb them, using a remote control to take the shots.”
The photo “Points, Lines, and Planes” depicts a solitary worker ant walking along a leaf on a tree in Australia. This image by author Yicai Chang from Australia won second place in the Small World category.
Two robins fighting in a spring battle in Scotland. The photo by author Jane Hope won second place in the Animal Behavior category.
The photo “Toolbox” by author Florian Smit distorts the perspective of the Rio Tinto River in Spain, captured from a drone above, highlighting the natural colors of the environment. This work won second place in the Landscape category.
The photo titled “The Drawing” by author Florian Smit won in the Small World category, depicting a dead moth in Rondane National Park, Norway. The moth lies on a bacterial film in the park, and the composition of the photo makes the scene resemble a rather eerie painting.
The foreground in the stunning Milky Way photo by author Bence Mate from Hungary features a wild boar. The photo won in the Night Sky category. Photographer Bence Mate remarked: “This photo was taken with a remote-controlled camera placed in a fish tank. Fortunately, the wild boar did not move at the moment the photo was taken. In Hungary, where the photo was shot, the Milky Way is rarely low enough in the sky to reach the horizon, and this phenomenon only occurs for a few days in August.”
The photo “Strong Solar Storm Passing Through an Iceland Cave” by author Josselin Cornou from France depicts the aurora illuminating the sky behind a waterfall in Iceland, casting light on the cave’s surface. This photo secured the runner-up position in the Night Sky category.
The winner in the Underwater category is the Blubber Jellyfish, a species found off the coast of Manly Beach, Australia. This image by author Rowan Dear from the UK alters the viewer’s perspective; we cannot tell what is above or below, only that there are many jellyfish.
The photograph titled “My Kingdom” by author Simon Biddie from the UK captures a portrait of a sea lion (Zalophus californianus). The image is framed by fish on three sides, with six other sea lions in the background. This photo won the wildlife portrait category of the competition.
The winner in the Urban Wildlife category is a photo of a brown rat taken in an abandoned house in 2018. The author Florian Smit from Germany used a motion sensor to trigger the camera for this shot.
A Sperm Whale Surrounded by a “Bait Ball” of Herring in the photograph from Skjervøy, Norway, won the runner-up prize in the Underwater category.
