It’s once again time for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards, where the Natural History Museum, London, presents some of the best images of the natural world across 19 categories. The competition has been going for 62 years, and, in 2026, garnered 65,000 submissions.

The winning photos depict animals in their natural – and sometimes unnatural – habitats, as well as plants, fungi and more. As usual, the museum is holding an exhibition of 100 images from the competition, starting this week and running into July 2027. If you want to see some (still very good) images that didn’t quite make the cut, you can check out our article covering 15 other entries that were highly commended.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 / Behaviour: Mammals – The Aftermath, Federico Veronesi

Federico Veronesi

Caption: Federico was tracking elephants when he came across an unusual pattern of drag marks in the sand of a dry riverbed. The source became clear when he caught up with a family group. A female emerged with the calf, its leg wedged between her tusk and trunk.

Behaviours centring on death have been observed in both Asian and African elephants, including vocalisations, guarding the dead, inspecting and handling bones, and carrying the deceased. Some researchers suggest these behaviours could indicate an elephant’s journey to understanding death, while others interpret these actions as possible displays of grief.

Location: Huab River Valley, Damaraland, Namibia

Technical details: Nikon Z8 | Nikon Nikkor Z 400mm F2.8 TC VR S | F2.8 | 1/1000 | ISO 72

Animals in their Environment – The Meeting Place, James Lewin

James Lewin

Caption: While there was no shortage of subjects and action around this waterhole, James had to deal with the harsh, unforgiving light. He chose to soften the light using a camera converted to infrared, creating this dream-like scene.

Waterholes can act as vital lifelines during severe droughts. Larger animals, such as elephants, have priority over others for access to waterholes. Herbivores spend more time at these drinking spots when elephants are present, possibly because their size deters predators, although competition for access to water may also prolong herbivores’ stay.

Location: ol Donyo Lodge, Chyulu Hills National Park, Makueni County, Kenya

Technical details: Nikon Z 7II (infrared converted) | Nikon Nikkor Z 28–75mm F2.8 lens | 45mm | F7.1 | 1/800 | ISO 800

Animal Portraits – A Watchful Eye, Aaron Sanders

Aaron Sanders

Caption: Aaron had been diving off Porthkerris Beach when he noticed the footprints of octopus suckers through a thin blade of kelp, and a single eye slowly emerging. ‘We remained perfectly still, watching one another with a seemingly shared curiosity,’ says Aaron.

In recent years in the waters off southwest England, there has been a dramatic increase in sightings of common octopuses, a species more frequently found in warmer Mediterranean waters. The influx or ‘bloom’ of these cephalopods has been linked to above-average springtime sea temperatures.

Location: Porthkerris Beach, Cornwall, England, UK

Technical details: Nikon Z8 | Nikon Nikkor Z 24–50mm F4–6.3 | 27mm | F7.1 | 1/40 sec | ISO 125 | Nauticam WWL-C wet lens | Inon Z-240 and Z-330 underwater strobes

Behaviour: Birds – Scenes from the Swamp, Isak Pretorius

Isak Pretorius

Caption: Exploring the swamp in a narrow canoe with a guide, Isak felt exceptionally lucky to see not one but two elusive shoebills. The birds pulled out vegetation, dropped it and then repeated the process several times. It’s likely this is a breeding pair gathering nesting material.

Though often called the shoebill stork, these large birds are more closely related to pelicans, herons and ibises. Fewer than 5,300 mature shoebills survive across their entire range and their numbers are decreasing.

Location: Mabamba Swamp, Wakiso District, Uganda

Technical details: Canon EOS R5 | 500mm F4 | F4 | 1/2500 sec | ISO 1250

Behaviour: Amphibians and Reptiles – Protective Pose, Anton Sorokin

Anton Sorokin

Caption: Anton hadn’t seen this pose before, despite documenting newt behaviour each winter. The pond was too dirty to swim, so Anton waded along the edge, carefully dipping his camera and lighting beneath the surface to record this remarkable view of parental care.

California newts interlock their back feet to protect the clutch, which are vulnerable to predation by other newts. They will stay like this until the gelatinous mass around the eggs has swollen too large to be eaten and has solidified onto the stem.

Location: Contra Costa County, California, USA

Technical details: Nikon D850 | Nikon AF-S 8–15mm fisheye F3.5-4.5E ED | F18 | 1/100 sec | ISO 400 | Nauticam housing | Seacam 60D strobes

Behaviour: Invertebrates – Shifting Sand, Sitaram Raul

Sitaram Raul

Caption: Exploring the dunes at night near the village of Sam, Sitaram saw many scorpions searching for prey. But as sunrise approached, they started burrowing to avoid the intense heat. Sitaram timed the exposure so that the excavated sand was suspended in mid-air.

Just one known species of Buthacus scorpion is from India. It uses its pincers to dig into large piles of sand. Stiff, elongated bristles or ‘sand combs’ are used like snowshoes to stop it from sinking into the dunes.

Location: Thar Desert, Rajasthan, India

Technical details: Nikon D750 | AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm F2.8G IF-ED | F14 | 1/250 sec | ISO 125 | Godox flash

Oceans: The Bigger Picture – Night-Time Catch, Alex Lindbloom

Alex Lindbloom

Caption: Alex started searching for sharks around dawn when the nets were still in the water. Initially lacking natural light for his drone’s camera, he found these sharks illuminated by the bagan’s bright lights.

Local fishing communities are using the predictable occurrence of whale sharks at bagans to attract tourists. Although contact with bagans can cause some minor injuries to whale sharks, this isn’t a major cause of mortality. The species’ significant decline in the Indo-Pacific region over the past 75 years is primarily driven by ship strikes, entanglements with fishing gear and illegal fishing.

Location: Off Cenderawasih Bay, Papua, Indonesia

Technical details: : DJI Air 3 | 24mm F1.7 lens | F1.7 | 1/60 sec | ISO 3200

Plants and Fungi – Shedding Light, Agorastos Papatsanis

Agorastos Papatsanis

Caption: On the lower slopes of Greece’s Mount Olympus, Agorastos experimented with ultraviolet (UV) illumination until it revealed the strongest fluorescent response from these mushrooms known as ‘beautiful bonnets’.

While humans cannot see UV light, we can get an inkling of its effect, thanks to the phenomenon of fluorescence. Mycologists are harnessing this phenomenon to distinguish closely related species of fungi by the colours and patterns they reveal under UV.

Location: Litochoro, Pieria, Greece

Technical details: Nikon D810 | Laowa 15mm F4 | F20 | 8.0 sec | ISO 400 | UV light | focus stack of 6 images

Natural Artistry – Escape Artistry, Michał Michalski

Michał Michalski

Caption: Michał was in a field of unharvested sunflowers that had attracted mixed flocks of birds, especially goldfinches and bramblings. As they took to the sky, startled by a sparrowhawk, Michał blurred the movement against a backdrop of leafless birches.

There is evidence that flocks containing multiple species forage more efficiently, partly because each brings different skills to the group. With more eyes on the lookout for predators, individuals can also afford to devote more time to feeding.

Location: Miłochowice, Lower Silesian Township, Poland

Technical details: Nikon D500 | Nikon AF-S Nikkor 500mm F5.6E PF ED VR | F8 | 1/30 sec | ISO 250

Under Water – Making Morays, Tony Wu

Tony Wu

Caption: Tony has been working with biologists to address a knowledge gap in the social behaviour of this eel species. Guided only by a dim red-light source to minimise disturbance, and using a customised fisheye camera lens, he has studied this male since 2024 as it visits females that dwell in crevices on the reef.

This is likely the first time Abbott’s moray eel courtship and spawning have been documented, and the observations from Tony’s work with biologists are feeding into published scientific studies.

Location: Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan

Technical details: Sony a1 | Customised Nikon fisheye 13mm F2.8 | F11 | 1/320 | ISO 500 | 2x Backscatter Hybrid HF-1 strobes

Urban Wildlife – Urban Jungle, Seth Forestson

Seth Forestson

Caption: The challenge wasn’t finding these lizards, but catching them in action, as they spend most of the day basking in the sun. When Seth spotted this one, he lowered himself down onto the mud to frame this city dragon against the Bangkok skyline.

Common water monitors have successfully adapted to living within cities across South and Southeast Asia. They will take whatever food source is available, such as the plentiful supplies of catfish and koi in the lakes of Bangkok’s Lumphini Park.

Location: Lumphini Park, Bangkok, Thailand

Technical details: Google Pixel 7 Pro | Main camera | F1.9 | 1/291 | ISO 47

Wetlands: The Bigger Picture – The Great Divide, Alex Visbal

Alex Visbal

Caption: This photograph is part of Alex’s long-term project documenting the industrial footprint on bodies of water.

The distinctive pink colour on the left is caused by bright pink microbes that thrive in extremely saline water, which happens when an area is cut off from a supply of fresh water. The ecology of the lake is in sharp decline due to industrial use, upstream diversions and climate change. Since this image was taken, the State of Utah has brought the area under conservation management.

Location: Stansbury Bay, Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA

Technical details: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | Canon EF 70–200mm F2.8 IS II USM | 70mm | F3.2 | 1/640 sec | ISO 1250

Photojournalism – Warning Sign, Francisco Negroni

Francisco Negroni

Caption: Tied to the fence and presented as a hunting trophy, this display was one Francisco had ‘never witnessed or photographed before’. In 2025, Santa Cruz banned the hunting of pumas, but illegal persecution continues.

Livestock predation is one of the major causes of human–puma conflict, and it’s suggested that enclosing sheep at night and using guard dogs can significantly reduce the loss of livestock without resorting to hunting. In southern Chile, some owners have even abandoned sheep farming in favour of puma tourism.

Location: Route 40, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina

Technical details: Canon EOS R5 | Canon RF 70–200mm F2.8 L IS USM Z | 70mm | F3.2 | 1/640 | ISO 100

10 Years and Under – Flight of the Bumblebee, Amelie Davis

Amelie Davis

Caption: Amelie had been taking photographs of bees for several months. On this August afternoon the garden was ‘teeming with bees’. Without her camera, Amelie borrowed her dad’s smartphone and was able to record the delicate detail of a single wingbeat.

Bees perceive plants and flowers in many ways. Distinguishing one colour for nectar and another for pollen helps them make rapid decisions when foraging. Their vision is tuned to blue, green and ultraviolet wavelengths, so they can see markings that are invisible to us.

Location: Surrey, England, UK

Technical details: Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max | Ultrawide lens | F2.2 | 1/895 sec | ISO 40

Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 / 11-14 Years – Labour of Love, Oscar Whitfield

Oscar Whitfield

Caption: Using a fast shutter speed and high light sensitivity, Oscar lay flat on the ground to photograph the beetle at eye level, with the sunshine and heat creating dry dust all around him.

There are more than 5,000 species of dung beetle found around the world, and they play a vital role in their environments. Breaking up dung and burying it prevents the conditions required for methane production, reducing the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions. Burying dung also helps it decompose faster, reducing the number of pests affecting livestock and wildlife.

Location: Zambezi National Park, Hwange District, Zimbabwe

Technical details: Canon EOS R6 Mark II | Sigma 150–600mm F5–6.3 DG OS HSM | 500mm | F6.3 | 1/1250 sec | ISO 3200

15-17 Years – Birdsong Painted in Light, Konrad Gräeter

Konrad Gräeter

Caption: Konrad had to crouch down low on the steep slope of the vineyard and point his camera through a gap in the foliage to frame the blackbird within its landscape.

Blackbirds can be heard singing at different times of day, but their songs have the most complex compositions at dawn. During the spring breeding season, the males sing from elevated vantage points to proclaim their territory and to attract a mate. Females respond with a softer sound, known as a subsong, during courtship.

Location: Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Technical details: Fujifilm X-H2S | Fujifilm XF 150–600mm F5.6–8 R LM OIS WR | 600mm | F8 | 1/800 sec | ISO 400

Photojournalist Story Award – Wily Coyotes of San Francisco, Loren Elliott

Loren Elliott

Caption: A coyote pads along a trail in Bernal Heights Park, overlooking the city and bay of San Francisco. This individual is part of a resident pack that Loren observed hunting rodents in the park, which is also popular with people and dogs.

Around 100 of these urban-adapted wild canines live alongside more than 800,000 human inhabitants, and attitudes towards them are mixed. While coyotes sometimes prey on domestic animals, they also bring benefits such as controlling disease-carrying rodents.

In this portfolio, Loren invites us to reconsider our perceptions of these wild animals and their place in urban environments, living alongside humans.

Location: San Francisco, USA

Technical details: Sony a9 II | 20mm F1.8 | F5.6 | 1/800 sec | ISO 250 | 2x Pocket Wizard Plus IIIe radio triggers

Rising Star Award – Hidden Depths, Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas

Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas

Caption: When Alexis spotted this robber fly, it had already impaled the flesh fly with its needlelike mouthparts. The bubbles forming in the victim’s eyes indicate that the robber fly has injected digestive enzymes that liquefy its internal tissues before they are sucked out.

A previous winner of the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, Alexis got his first camera aged ten. His focus shifted to macro photography during the Covid-19 lockdowns, when he was unable to venture farther than the urban habitats close to home in Berlin, Germany.

By experimenting with focus stacking techniques, which involve combining multiple images with different planes of focus to increase the depth of field, Alexis wants to bring Winner Rising Star Award attention to species that often go unnoticed.

Location: Germany and Northern Ireland, UK

Technical details: Fujifilm X-H2 | Laowa 65mm f2.8 macro | F5.6 | 1/200 | ISO 200 | Godox V860III flash + Cygnustech diffuser | focus stack of 24 images

Portfolio Award – Secret Worlds, Kutub Uddin

Kutub Uddin

Caption: Fine threads, known as capillitium, emerge on the round, yellow-green bodies, which will eventually help disperse reproductive spores. Kutub says they appear like ‘tiny clusters or unusual textures on the wood, often appearing as minute pins, spheres or dust-like groupings’.

Kutub became interested in slime moulds in 2024, and as a macro photographer now devotes much of his time to revealing this tiny hidden world. He loves exploring his local woodlands in southeast England, where fallen logs and damp forest floors provide opportunities for discovering these fascinating organisms.

Slime moulds occur throughout the world, mostly growing on dead wood or leaf litter while feeding on other micro-organisms. The structures depicted in this portfolio are just one to two millimetres high (less than 1/12 of an inch).

Location: West Sussex, England, UK

Technical details: Canon EOS R5 | Canon MP-E 65mm F2.8 1-5x Macro Photo | F3.2 | 1/4 sec | ISO 400 | diffused flash | Cognisys StackShot macro rail | Benro Bat tripod | focus stack of 124 images

The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards has announced the finalists of its 2026 competition. This year’s edition drew more than 10,000 entries, which the competition says was the highest number in its history. Photographers hailed from 112 countries.

This year’s finalist selection includes 40 individual finalists, 3 under-16 finalists, 4 Portfolio Category finalists and 9 video finalists. The individual competition also includes 4 categories of its own: mammals; birds; reptiles, amphibians and insects; and aquatic species. The Overall, Category and Highly Commended Winners will be announced on December 8 at an awards ceremony in London.

The competition was founded in 2015 in part to promote conservation, and to that end, every year it lends support to a sustainable conservation organization. This year, it is working with the Born Free Foundation, an international charity that rescues and protects wild animals from exploitation while also conserving threatened species and their natural habitats.

You can see a selection of the finalist images below, and see the full gallery at the competition website.

Push Over – Barbara Seiberl-Stark, Austria

© Barbara Seiberl-Stark / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer’s description: A lion pride was playing in the riverbed of Ruckomechi in Zimbabwe – The picture was taken during my very first Safari this year in june in Zimbabwe. We were out for a game drive early in the morning and were lucky to spot a pride of young lions in the dried-up riverbed just in front of the Kavinga-Camp. The rising sun bathed the landscape in glorious light and the lions had obviously a lot of fun. As there were 7 of them, it was hard to decide in wich direction or on what scene to point the camera. From all photos, I took this morning ‘Push over!’ was the funniest.

Location: Zimbabwe

Technical details: Sony a1 II | Sony FE 300mm F2.8 GM OSS | F2.8 | 1/1600 sec | ISO 1000

Lessons – Heather Cudworth, USA

© Heather Cudworth / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: Amboseli was in the midst of a 4 year drought. The land was extremely parched. Elephants are known for giving themselves dust baths. This behavior provides protection from the sun and soothes their skin. While observing elephants tossing dust and mud over their bodies is somewhat common, I don’t think the huge plume of dust delivered directly to this youngsters face would have been possible if not for the extreme dry conditions. While this photo is objectively funny, there is a lesson to be learned by us humans, too. Our actions create ripple effects which spread far and wide. Much like this cloud of dust this baby elephant is about to endure! Mum took a break from walking to enjoy a soothing dust bath. She began to pick up piles of dirt, dust, and grass and toss them effortlessly over her head. She paused for a moment then gathered a particularly large amount of debris. She pulled her trunk back as if she was winding up for a strike-out pitch, then proceeded to shower her youngster with presumably the most high-pressure dust bath he’d ever experienced, directly to the face! Whether she was teaching him a lesson in cleaning his skin, keeping his mouth shut, or both, I don’t know. However, I am certain she got her point across. Listen to your mother, little one.

Location: Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Technical Details: Canon EOS R5 | Canon RF 100-400mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM | 300mm | F5.6 | 1/200 sec | ISO 100

If I can’t see you – Cliff Fawcett, UK

© Cliff Fawcett / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer’s description: I watched this bull in South Africa stroll toward a group with absolute confidence, until he got within twenty yards. Suddenly, the trunk went up, the eye went into hiding, and he executed a very slow, very awkward U-turn. We’ve all been there; he just happens to weigh six thousand kilos. I was observing an elephant herd in Addo National Park, when one juvenile caught my eye, repeatedly swinging his trunk with reckless abandon. It meant I completely ignored the other thirty magnificent, full-grown elephants at the same waterhole to stay glued to one goofy youngster messing about. I kept the frame tight, resisted the urge to look away, and waited for the motion to peak. I certainly didn’t plan for him to blindfold himself, but the moment he slapped his trunk across his eye, it was peak toddler logic: if I can’t see you, you can’t see me. The second I saw it on the screen—I knew it was going straight to the Comedy Wildlife Awards.

I like to say I have a mind trained in psychology and a life shaped by adventure. What is means is that my work is rooted in an understanding of what grabs human attention and creates lasting meaning and all as an excuse to see as much of this crazy beautiful planet as possible. I’m not obsessed with gear and I don’t put too much focus on rigid composition rules. It’s about learning to see the quiet signals in images that actually move people.

Location: Addo National Park, South Africa

Technical Details: Nikon Z7 II | Tamron 100-400mm F4.5-6.3 Di VC USD | 400mm | F6.3 | 1/1000 sec | ISO 800

Sexy mantis – Diego Perez, Peru

© Diego Perez / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: A tiny green mantis peeks over a leaf during a night walk in an area of Cusco, Peru, that is still waiting to be protected. I decided to enter this photograph because almost everyone I showed it to had the same reaction: they laughed immediately, even if they could not quite explain why. At first, the mantis seems to be sunbathing, or perhaps striking a rather glamorous pose. But there is also a small visual trick: half of the insect is hidden behind the leaf. Its hind legs disappear from view and, suddenly, its enormous forelegs begin to look almost like a pair of human legs.

I have photographed mantises several times before and have always found them surprisingly difficult subjects. Their long bodies, tiny heads and oversized forelegs are almost the opposite of the proportions that normally make an easy portrait. At first, I tried photographing this one with its entire body in the frame, but the images felt too familiar. So I began lowering my angle and using the leaf to hide different parts of the insect. That was when the image suddenly came together.

It was actually the first insect I photographed on the very first night of the trip, during a night walk in Camanti, Cusco. I was there documenting the forests and wildlife of the proposed Bosques del Araza Regional Conservation Area, one of Peru’s rainiest landscapes and an area increasingly threatened by illegal gold mining. The proposed protected area seeks to safeguard the headwaters of several important rivers and the biodiversity they support.

Location: Camanti, Cusco, Peru

Technical Details: Canon EOS R5 C | Venus Laowa 100mm F2.8 2X Ultra Macro APO | F14 | 1/200 sec | ISO 100

The different one – Dirk Koster, Netherlands

© Dirk Koster / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: I took this photo in 2025 in the Masai Mara, Kenya, in the Oltepesi area. Three young giraffes were standing side by side on the open, dry savanna and looked back at me with great curiosity. Then I noticed that right behind the middle one stood a single umbrella acacia, perfectly lined up with its head and neck. Suddenly that giraffe seemed to be ‘wearing’ the tree, like a green hairdo or a rather fancy hat. The other two looked completely normal, which made the middle one ‘the different one’. Nothing was staged or arranged; it was simply a matter of being in the right spot at the right moment, and seeing it. For me that is what wildlife photography is about: looking closely, being patient, and letting the animals tell the story. Sometimes they have a great sense of humour. Dirk Koster is a semi-professional nature and wildlife photographer from the Netherlands. After many years as a business consultant, he now has more time for photography. What he looks for in nature is not so different from his former work: not just what is there, but how things relate to each other. He is drawn to stories and interaction between animals. His photos are found, not staged. His work is regularly awarded on https://dk-foto.nl, and in mid-November 2026 the book ‘100 mooiste bomen van Amsterdam’ (The 100 most beautiful trees of Amsterdam, Noordboek) will be published with his photographs. Earlier he photographed in Guatemala as a member of Photographers Without Borders.

Location: Masai Mara

Technical Details: Sony a1 | Sony FE 50-150mm F2 GM | 63mm | F4 | 1/1600 sec | ISO 100

Angry Bird – Jan Wittmer, Germany

© Jan Wittmer / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: During my photo trip to the island of Helgoland, I encountered a goldcrest for the very first time – and it was love at first sight. Europe’s smallest bird wandered around on the ground right in front of me, presumably searching for food. To get a perspective at eye level, I placed my camera on the ground. My heart was pounding, and my finger was glued to the shutter as the tiny bird darted back and forth every second. Suddenly, it came to a complete stop and looked straight into the camera. That was the exact moment this photo was taken.

Location: Helgoland, Germany

Technical Details: Sony a1 | Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS | 400mm | F5.6 | 1/4000 sec | ISO 1600

Are You Kidding Me? – Kevin Lohman, USA

© Kevin Lohman / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: A young Great Horned Owl had barely settled onto its perch before a protective squirrel launched a surprise aerial tackle, knocking it into the grass below. The most unbelievable part? The squirrel repeated the stunt two more times. The owl and squirrel were shaken up, but unharmed. I have been observing and photographing Great Horned Owls at this location for around nine years, and I had never seen anything like this before. An adult pair was raising two chicks, and once the young owls began branching, I started visiting them regularly in the mornings and evenings to observe their behavior. On this particular morning, I spotted one of the seven-week-old owlets perched in a pine tree along the path.

As soon as I saw the young owl, I stopped and watched it for a few minutes. It was fairly close to the ground, and I did not want to get too close. While I was standing there, the owlet hopped onto another nearby branch. I liked the way the pine branches framed it against the sky, so I raised my camera and began photographing as the young owl looked up and over its shoulder.

Just as I pressed the shutter for a burst of images, a squirrel suddenly launched from a nearby branch and landed directly on the owlet’s head, knocking both animals out of the tree. It happened so quickly that the squirrel essentially photobombed my photograph! I moved to another position and found the owlet sitting in the grass. It appeared to be fine and gradually worked its way from the ground back into the tree. Then, incredibly, a squirrel knocked it out of the tree again. The owlet climbed back up once more, this time moving closer to its mother, who was perched nearby. Surely that had to be the end of it. But no. A squirrel knocked the young owl out of the tree for a third time! After photographing these owls for so many years, I could hardly believe what I was watching. The same young owl had been knocked out of the tree three times in about an hour and a half.

After the third encounter, the adult female began hooting, and the owlet eventually made its way back up to her perch. She began preening the young owl, and the two finally settled down together. I stayed for a while longer, but everything became quiet. When I returned that evening, the mother and owlet were still perched together, with no squirrel in sight.
That morning, as was often the case during my morning visits, I was there by myself. I was handholding a Nikon Z9 with a NIKKOR Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S. Working with a long lens allows me to remain at a distance, stay quiet, and reposition easily without disturbing the owls. Handholding also lets me respond quickly when unexpected behavior unfolds. In this case, I was shooting a burst at 20 frames per second at exactly the moment the squirrel appeared. I certainly wasn’t expecting a squirrel to come flying into the frame and land on the owl’s head!

Location: Natural Bridges State Beach, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

Technical Details: Nikon Z9 | Nikon Z 400mm F2.8 TC VR S | TC engaged | F4 | 1/1000 sec | ISO 1000

Elvis – Paolo Torre, Italy

© Paolo Torre / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: This caiman emerged from the water in an area with a lot of floating vegetation, and part of it remained on its head. It resembles a 1950s rock and roll hairstyle.

Location: Pantanal, Brazil

Technical Details: Nikon D300S | 300mm | F5.6 | 1/1000 sec | ISO 200

Oops – I think I just parped – Carolyn Moore, UK

© Carolyn Moore / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer’s description: In the spring of this year, I went with a friend to a spot that we knew had a healthy population of hares. Our plan was to see how close we could get to the hares without disturbing them using a little of what we knew about fieldcraft – it is important to stay below the horizon when tracking hare and to disguise solid shapes – such as human shapes! Sure enough, there were a few hares in the field and the grass was just long enough to give a bit of protection to the hares and set a nice backdrop for the photographs. I set myself up with a long lens and tripod on the edge of the field using camouflage netting and wearing camouflage clothes. I stood next to the hedge using the netting to break the solid shapes that would be caused by me and my tripod. The next stage was to send my friend off to walk the perimeter of the field on the other side of the hedge with the intention of not disturbing the hares but encouraging them into, rather than away from, the field.

I didn’t need to wait for long, several hare came close to where I was standing without seeing me, enabling me to snap away without worrying them at all. I think the image shows just how relaxed this little fella was. It was a joy to watch them going about their activities and seemingly totally relaxed. This is what wildlife photography is all about for me!

Location: Wiltshire, UK

Technical Details: Canon EOS R5 II | Canon EF 500mm F4 L IS II USM + Canon EF 1.4x III | F5.6 | 1/2000 sec | ISO 2000

Ballet Dancer – Robert Nairn, UK

© Robert Nairn / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: I am 69 and an amateur photographer and member of Ayr Photographic Society. I am a general photographer but enjoy wildlife photography and was inspired by David Bailey and bought an Olympus OM1 in 1978. However, having four children I did not return to more serious photography until after I retired. This image was taken in Dumfriesshire, Scotland with a Nikon z8 and 100-400 mm lens.

Location: Dumfries, Scotland

Technical Details: Nikon Z8 | Nikon AF-S 300mm F2.8G IF-ED VR II | F3.5 | 1/3200 sec | ISO 500

#ForTheGram – Rosie Barrett, UK

© Rosie Barrett / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: I went on a photography mission in Finland and my absolute dream species was the brown bear. After a few days of observing bears in the woods, I was lucky enough to encounter a family with 3 playful yearling’s. They were all climbing up and down the trees and one stopped for just a moment in this perfect pose. Pretty sure he knew it was for Instagram..un-bear-lieavable!

Location: Finland

Technical Details: None provided

Spicy Orangutan – Tanner Mansell, USA

© Tanner Mansell / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: A wild orangutan in the rainforests of Borneo appears to deliver a perfectly timed gesture toward the camera. As he finishes a meal with one finger extended, it creates the unmistakable impression that he is flipping off the lens. Though entirely coincidental, the moment captures an almost unsettling reflection of ourselves in one of our closest relatives. Taken in the disappearing jungles of Borneo, the photograph highlights both the intelligence and personality of these critically endangered great apes. Orangutans have so much personality, and there’s something wonderfully familiar about their expressions and gestures. Even though he was completely wild and just enjoying his food, I couldn’t help wondering, “Does he know what he’s doing?” That’s what makes the moment so funny to me.

I also hope the photograph encourages people to appreciate orangutans and care about protecting them. Beyond the humour, these remarkable animals face the loss of their forest habitat, and their future depends on conservation.

Location: Borneo Jungle

Technical Details: Sony a1 | Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II | 200mm | F4 | 1/640 | ISO 640

Out of water – Thong Duy Vu, Vietnam

© Thong Duy Vu / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: On a gentle sunlit afternoon, a little sunbird excitedly set off for a five-star spa deep in the forest. From afar, he spotted a “natural bathtub” – a bright red banana blossom, filled with cool water and plenty of sweet nectar. He landed on the blossom and savored the sweet nectar. After his treat, he hopped into the “tub” and began enjoying the refreshing, cool water. He tilted his head this way, stretched his wings that way, and wagged his tail, sending droplets splashing all over his body. The feeling was incredibly relaxing and refreshing. With his tiny beak, he carefully preened each feather until all the dust was gone. Then, he hopped back onto the edge of the tub, enjoyed some more nectar, and didn’t forget to sing a few cheerful notes as if to say, “Today I must be the freshest, cleanest, and most dazzling bird in the forest!” He jumped back into the tub, repeating his routine—tilting his head, spreading his wings, wagging his tail—but alas, why wasn’t there a single drop of water left? He looked up at the sky and exclaimed, “Oh my goodness, where did all the water go? What kind of half-finished bath is this?” He thought, this spa definitely deserves a one-star rating. I should’ve just bathed in the rain earlier. What a buzzkill! In the end, he had no choice but to dust off his wings and fly away, muttering to himself, “Next time I go to a spa, I need to check the calendar.” And just like that, the fancy five-star spa trip ended with the water running out.

Location: Vietnam

Technical Details: Nikon D4S | Nikon AF-S 200-400mm F4G IF-ED VR II | 400mm | F4 | 1/1000 sec | ISO 1000

Little Godzilla – Udo Harms, Germany

© Udo Harms / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: This squirrel had taken a bit too much in its mouth – but with a few firm bites, the greenery was made to fit. Taken with the Nikon Z6 II and AF-S Nikkor 500mm PF, 1/1000 sec., f8.0, Iso 4500

Location: Hannover, Germany

Technical Details: None provided

Playing Dress-Up – Phiané Oosthuizen, South Africa (U16 category)

© Phiane Ooshuizen / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Photographer description: I captured this photograph of a Southern Double-Collared Sunbird (Cinnyris chalybeus) at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa. These tiny nectar-feeding birds are closely connected to the fynbos of the Cape and play an important role as pollinators. Southern Double-Collared Sunbirds are one of the nectar-specialist sunbird species found in the Cape Floristic Region, and Kirstenbosch is home to an incredible diversity of birdlife, with more than 125 bird species recorded in the Garden. What made this particular moment so special was that the bird was feeding from a flower. He pushed his beak deep into the flower to reach the nectar, and when he pulled away, the petal came with him. For a moment, it looked as though he had suddenly put on an enormous beak and was playing dress-up! It was such a funny and unexpected little moment that I was so grateful to have captured it.Photographing birds like this requires a lot of patience. They are incredibly quick and constantly moving, so you can spend a long time waiting for the right moment. I love that aspect of wildlife photography – you cannot force the photograph to happen. You have to slow down, sit quietly and observe. Eventually, if you are patient enough, these tiny birds begin appearing all around you, almost like little fairies moving between the flowers. Kirstenbosch is one of my favourite places to photograph because of the incredible combination of wildlife, flowers and the Cape landscape. The Garden lies against the eastern slopes of Table Mountain and contains beautiful natural areas of fynbos and forest. The Cape Floral Region is exceptionally rich in plant diversity, and the fynbos provides an especially important habitat and food source for sunbirds and other pollinators.

For me, wildlife photography is about more than simply getting a technically good photograph. It is about noticing the small, unexpected moments in nature and capturing something that someone else might otherwise miss and never get to see, and now the joy of that moment can be shared. This photograph is special to me because it captures both the beauty and the playful, unpredictable character of one of the Cape’s smallest birds

Location: Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Western Cape, SA

Technical Details: Canon EOS R5 | Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM | 363mm | F7.1 | 1/1250 sec | ISO 5000

Photographers usually discuss focal length in millimeters. But the San Diego Air & Space Museum’s newly unpacked reconnaissance camera is identified in inches: 24 of them, or roughly 610mm. According to the museum, an even longer 48-inch version followed. 

The camera was part of a cache of unused 1960s-era equipment supplied with the museum’s Lockheed A-12, the CIA’s Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft and the predecessor to the SR-71 Blackbird. The video is nearly 20 minutes long and begins with substantial background on the A-12 (it is an aviation channel, after all) so photographers may want to jump to the 11:47 mark, where the museum gets into the cameras and how they were used. 

In the video, host Gordon Permann walks through some of the challenges of making a sharp photograph from about 80,000 feet while traveling at roughly 2500 mph. The ground would move hundreds of feet beneath the aircraft during an exposure, resulting in a blurred image. Making matters worse, neither the aircraft nor the terrain would necessarily be level. The solution was motion compensation: the camera itself would “skew,” or make a small movement as its aperture opened, counteracting image smear.

Another fascinating feature is simply how much film these systems used. Permann first shows the standard film canister used in reconnaissance aircraft from the 1950s through the 1990s, which he says held roughly 1200 feet of film. But the A-12 and SR-71 Blackbird needed still more film, so a larger canister was made. The museum has one of those, too, which Permann lifts in the video. He explains that the larger camera used a five-inch-wide film strip, with around 4.5 inches of usable image area. Each individual frame measured about six feet long.

Permann says the system could image more than 100,000 square miles in a single hour, capturing huge swathes of land or sea at once. He also recounts a Blackbird making a turn with its camera running and pointed out to sea. When the film was developed, analysts reportedly spotted a U.S. destroyer on the horizon, 94 miles away, and were able to identify the ship’s type despite the distance.

A separate, still-factory-wrapped camera in another crate is the real mystery: its 1953 date predates the A-12 project by six years, so it couldn’t have come from a Blackbird-family aircraft. The museum is seeking the public’s help to identify what airplane it may have been used on, so anyone with a theory can head to the video and share it in the comments.

I love watching adventure stories, especially when they pull back the curtain on the work required to tell them well. Salomon’s short documentary, The Women Who Took Over UTMB, does exactly that, following an all-women photo, video, and social team as they cover UTMB, one of trail running’s largest and most demanding events.

The team is there to document 23 Salomon athletes across five races and nearly 400 kilometers of mountain terrain over six days. They’re navigating unpredictable weather, road closures, long drives around the Mont Blanc massif, patchy connectivity, tight turnaround times, and the physical effort of carrying heavy camera kits to the places where the most compelling moments might unfold.

The film covers a lot, including the logistics of capturing an event like this. It is easy to see a dramatic mountain-running image or polished race recap and forget the chain of decisions behind it: where to position a photographer, how to get a camera operator ahead of an athlete, when to stop shooting and start transmitting and how to keep creating after little sleep. The crew has to make those calls constantly, while contending with rain, snow, exhaustion and a mid-race course adjustment.

I’ve helped a runner during a far less intense ultramarathon and got a small taste of just how grueling the experience can be, even without the pressure of covering it or the burden of camera gear. Calling this assignment demanding would be an understatement, and the team did a phenomenal job producing photo, video, and social coverage throughout the event.

The fact that the content team is made up entirely of women adds a welcome dimension in a space that has been male-dominated. The film touches on why this team was assembled in the first place and on some of their experiences as women in the field. It also highlights that these are simply experienced creatives doing incredibly difficult work at a very high level, supporting one another and finding the human stories within a massive endurance event.

For anyone interested in adventure, storytelling, sports photography, filmmaking, or the often-invisible labor behind major event coverage, it’s a compelling watch.

Despite what many people believe today, the View-Master wasn’t a toy. It was a photographic instrument, sold for decades alongside disks of stereoscopic photo pairs that took you a world away. And that’s where my story with the View-Master – and even my interest in photography – begins.

But my part of the story comes later. The View-Master’s story starts at the mouth of a cave in southern Oregon in 1938.

According to the Oregon Historical Society, Harold Graves, the president of Sawyer’s, a photo-finishing company in Portland, was vacationing there when he met a photographer named William Gruber, who was carrying a homemade stereo photography rig.

Sawyer’s had become the nation’s largest producer of scenic postcards. Gruber had figured out how to mount tiny chips of the then-new Kodachrome film into a paper reel that could be viewed through a small handheld stereoscope. Graves, Gruber and Sawyer’s co-owner Edwin Mayer, sensing an opportunity, struck up a partnership and developed the View-Master, which made its debut at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

It’s worth thinking about what Sawyer’s thought it was selling. The View-Master was pitched as an alternative to the scenic postcard, targeting the same channels postcards did: gift shops at scenic locations, stationery stores and even photography shops. Notably, not toy stores.

Dale Baskin

Even the US military took notice; it ordered 100,000 of the viewers to use for training during World War II.

The View-Master wasn’t the first device for viewing stereo images, a technology that predated practical photography; Charles Wheatstone, a member of the Royal Society, described his stereoscope, which used drawings, in 1838, a year before the daguerreotype was announced to the world. But photography made stereo viewing far more compelling than drawings ever could, and “stereographs” became a popular form of visual entertainment in the latter half of the 19th and earlier 20th centuries.

What the View-Master managed to do was productize stereo photo viewing in a dummy-proof device that was easy to use, in beautiful Kodachrome color. The earliest reels featured the same things as postcards, including National Parks, famous landmarks, and scenic travel destinations.

The View-Master-as-toy came later. In 1951, Sawyer’s bought Tru-Vue, its main competitor, which had a license with Walt Disney Studios, and Disney reels and other entertainment brands like Looney Tunes and The Muppets followed. So, the View-Master was eventually sold as a toy. It just didn’t start as one.

Dale Baskin

As a child, I loved the View-Master. Whenever we got a new set of picture disks, it gave me a new world to explore. During our family’s summer road trips, I could spend hours in the back of our banana-yellow station wagon, looking at photos through my View-Master.

That’s pretty remarkable when you think about the fact that each disk contained just seven pairs of images. In an age where the phones in our pockets put limitless media at our disposal, that seems like a staggeringly small set of photos, but somehow I just kept looking at them. Over and over again. I probably looked at some of those photos thousands of times, and I never got tired of it.

Back then, View-Master disks could be found at tourist locations. Every National Park gift shop had them. Sure, you could buy a postcard, but the View-Master disk of the park was way better. (Unless, of course, you actually wanted to send someone a postcard.) You could relive the experience of that National Park for hours during the drive to the next National Park, where you could acquire a new set of View-Master reels. In contrast, you had to wait until you got home to see the photos your parents took.

In 1952, in a further nod to photographers, Sawyer’s launched the View-Master Personal Stereo Camera, which allowed you to capture 69 pairs of photos on a 36-exposure roll of film. The company offered a mail-order mounting service, or users could mount their own photos on View-Master reels. You still had to wait until you got home to process your images, but you could have View-Master reels of your trip. It’s amazing to think you could buy an entire camera system built around this.

John Alan Elson

While visiting my parents recently, I found a box with my childhood View-Master inside. Nostalgia is a strong thing, so I immediately took it off the shelf, inserted one of the reels and found myself staring at Yosemite National Park, displayed in rich colors and deep shadows. It had the unmistakable look of Kodachrome and reminded me of the slides my father shot on family vacations.

My father was always taking pictures. No vacation was complete without a camera coming along. Back home, we’d gather in the living room for slideshow nights, kind of like movie nights today, where he would load one box of 36 slides at a time into the stack loader on our Kodak projector, allowing us to relive whatever slice of our lives had passed during that roll of film. Those slides were usually Kodachrome, too.

The images on those old View-Master disks had that same look, but with a couple of important differences. First, they were stereo pairs, and the depth made them less like pictures and more like places.

The second one mattered more. Most were of incredible landscapes I had never seen, or people from different cultures and faraway lands. It was like browsing through the photos in a National Geographic magazine (something else I did a lot as a kid; I wasn’t as good about reading the articles back then), except better. My father’s slides showed me where we had been. The View-Master showed me where I hadn’t been yet, and I wanted to go to those places and take pictures of them.

Dale Baskin

In retrospect, I think the View-Master was a proxy for the camera I didn’t own yet. Today, I realize that it wasn’t just looking at the pictures that I enjoyed, but the act of holding the device up to my eyes, of looking through the viewfinder up close, and having the all-immersive experience of seeing that and nothing else.

We live in a time when taking photos often involves holding a screen in front of our faces. I still don’t get the same satisfaction from that experience as bringing the viewfinder to my eye, focusing on the image and letting the rest of the world fade away. And I suspect that’s one thing that draws a lot of new photographers to a dedicated camera. Once you know that feeling, it’s addictive.

As a kid, I wanted to take photos like my Dad. I wanted to take photos like the ones in National Geographic. And I wanted to take photos like the ones I saw in the View-Master.

And when I finally bought my first roll of film with my own money, it was Kodachrome.

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The National Audubon Society has announced the winners of the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards, with Jacqueline Burke of the US winning the US and Canada Grand Prize for a photo of a Roseate Spoonbill and Francisco Castro Escobar of Chile winning the Chile and Colombia Grand Prize for a photo of a Lesser Horned Owl.

The specific geographic designations reflect the Audubon Society’s hemispheric conservation model. Birds aren’t bound by international borders, and hundreds of species migrate thousands of kilometers each year along flyways that stretch between North, Central and South America. Colombia hosts nearly 20 percent of the world’s avian species, and Chile’s 6,435km (3,999mi) of coastline and wetlands are vital stopovers and wintering grounds for many shorebirds coming from as far away as the Arctic.

The National Audubon Society, founded in 1905, sponsors the contest each year to celebrate bird and bird habitat photography and to further its conservation mission. This is the second year the competition has included prizes to Chile and Colombia residents. Winners and honorable mentions will be published online in Audubon magazine, and winners will be featured in the Fall 2026 print issue. The top 100 photos will be announced on September 23. If you’re interested in entering next year’s competition, which opens for entries on January 13, 2027, you can find the full contest rules and category details on the Audubon website.

If you really enjoy bird photography, you can also check out our coverage of Audubon’s previous award winners from 2025, 2023 and 2022.

U.S. and Canada winners

Jacqueline Burke

Photographer: Jacqueline Burke (USA)
Award: Grand Prize
Species: Roseate Spoonbill
Photo location: St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park, St. Augustine, Florida, USA

Liron Gertsman

Photographer: Liron Gertsman (Canada)
Award: Birds in Landscapes – Winner
Species: White-tailed Tropicbird
Photo location: Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Volcano, Hawai’i, USA

Nick Parayko

Photographer: Nick Parayko (Canada)
Award: Birds Without Borders – Winner
Species: Tennessee Warbler
Photo location: St. Albert, Alberta, Canada (in his backyard)

Josh Galicki

Photographer: Josh Galicki (USA)
Award: Conservation – winner
Species: Northern Gannets
Photo location: Isle of Noss, Shetland Islands, United Kingdom

Mike Henry

Photographer: Mike Henry (USA)
Award: Plants for Birds – winner
Species: Gila Woodpecker and saguaro cactus
Photo location: Tucson, Arizona, USA

Ian Shultz

Photographer: Ian Shultz (USA)
Award: Youth – Winner
Species: Rock Pigeon
Photo location: Golden Gardens Park, Seattle, Washington, USA

Gail Bisson

Photographer: Gail Bisson (Canada)
Award: Female Bird – Winner
Species: Common Merganser
Photo location: East Bay Sandbar, Nova Scotia, Canada

Photographer: Piper VanOrd (USA)
Award: Video – Winner
Species: Great Blue Heron
Photo location: Allegheny Islands Wilderness, National Wild & Scenic Allegheny River, Warren, Pennsylvania

Chile and Colombia winners

Francisco Castro Escobar

Photographer: Francisco Castro Escobar (Chile)
Award: Grand
Species: Lesser Horned Owl
Photo location: Antofagasta, Chile

Rodrigo González Pairoa

Photographer: Rodrigo González Pairoa (Chile)
Award: Birds Without Borders – Winner
Species: Black-browed Albatross
Photo location: Almirantazgo Fjord, Chile

Photographer: Nicolás Muñoz García (Chile)
Award: Video – Winner
Species: Black-browed Albatross
Photo location: Isla Chañaral Marine Reserve, Huasco Province, Chile. The nearest town is Caleta Chañaral de Aceituno

Santiago Giraldo

Photographer: Santiago Giraldo (Colombia)
Award: Plants for Birds Colombia – Winner
Species: Yellow-eared Parrot and Quindio wax palm
Photo location: Anaime, Cajamarca, Tolima

Juan David Camacho Márquez

Photographer: Juan David Camacho Márquez (Colombia)
Award: Youth – Winner
Species: Canada Warbler
Photo location: Doña Dora Birding, El Queremal, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

Santiago Pérez Rincón

Photographer: Santiago Pérez Rincón (Colombia)
Award: Conservation – Winner
Species: Yellow-eared Parrot
Photo location: Anaime River Canyon, Rural District of the Municipality of Cajamarca, Department of Tolima, Colombia.

Faber Mosquera Alvarez

Photographer: Faber Mosquera Alvarez (Colombia)
Award: Birds in Landscapes, Colombia – Winner
Species: Oilbird
Photo location: Pijao, Quindío, Colombia. In the Cañón de los Guácharos

Gonzalo Bertolotto Quintana

Photographer: Gonzalo Bertolotto Quintana (Chile)
Award: Coastal Birds of Chile – Winner
Species: Gentoo Penguin
Photo location: Fildes Bay, Antarctica, in the vicinity of the Chilean bases

Timothy Dhalleine

Photographer: Timothy Dhalleine (Chile)
Award: Birds in Landscapes, Chile – Winner
Species: Crested Caracara
Photo location: Torres del Paine National Park, Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic region, Chile

Mistakes are part of life as a photographer or videographer. I’ve messed up too many times to count, forgetting to pack an extra battery, showing up to a shoot with a full memory card and botching my settings badly enough that the images were unusable.

Most of those just cost me lost photographs or some added stress. But sometimes a mistake leads somewhere better than the plan. While attending Sony’s Kando event, where Sony invited me along with fellow press and other image-makers, I asked six photographers and videographers about a mistake they’re glad they made. Here’s what they said.

These conversations happened on the fly at the event, so most of the creatives didn’t have the specific image handy. The photos below are from their portfolios, with the exception of Nancy Borowick and Jabin Botsford.

Sarina Soriano

Sarina Soriano (@sarinasoriano_)is a senior producer and director of photography (DP) for the San Francisco 49ers, where she’s a nine-time regional Emmy winner and was the first woman in the role, as well as one of the first Latina cinematographers in the NFL.

Her mistake was a setting she didn’t intend to be shooting at. “A mistake that I made that ended up actually turning out well was that I put a high shutter on one of my videos, but was able to really slow it down in DaVinci, and it looked absolutely epic,” she said.

Nate Luebbe

Nate Luebbe (@nateinthewild) is a landscape, wildlife and adventure photographer and a member of Sony’s Alpha Imaging Collective, with a portfolio built around grizzlies, northern lights and remote wilderness.

Luebbe’s mistake was accidentally using too slow a shutter speed for wildlife, which ended up being a visual tool that he likes utilizing. “Every now and then, a little bit of motion blur can tell a good story about an animal that’s moving fast,” he said.

He pointed to an image he took in Katmai National Park as an example of where the approach works: shooting the bears at the top of the falls in low light, he kept his shutter slow rather than pushing his ISO. “I ended up getting some motion on the water, but the bears were standing still. It looks kind of cool, and you can still see what’s going on. It added a little more depth to it.”

Nancy Borowick

Nancy Borowick

Nancy Borowick (@nancyborowick) is a documentary photographer, author and Sony Artisan of Imagery who has worked regularly with The New York Times since 2013 and whose work often centers on health and relationships.

Borowick’s mistake was a missing caption. Early in her career, she was photographing the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which she describes as “the most fun in the entire world,” she said. When prepping to send images to her editor, she realized one frame’s caption was incomplete. “I had asked the name of the dog, because we were at a dog show, but I never asked the name of the human, and I felt like that was important to have,” she said.

So she went looking online. “All the champion dogs have these Facebook pages, naturally,” she said, and the dog’s page led her to its owner, who, as it happened, was also named Nancy.

Two hours of messaging later, they were friends. That turned into permission to photograph the woman, her wife and their pack of golden retrievers at home, which has now become a long-term project called Part of the Pack, a series dedicated to photographing the relationship between dogs and those who breed, own and show them. “Caption information is so important, especially getting it right,” Borowick said, “but on occasion, mistakes lead to happy accidents and long-term projects.”

Jabin Botsford

Jabin Botsford is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who spent 11 years on staff at The Washington Post covering politics, breaking news and, since 2014, Donald Trump.

Botsford’s mistake was a moment of missed focus. In 2020, he was in the Rose Garden for one of many Trump press conferences, this one running well past its expected length. “While the rest of my colleagues were just filing and hiding in the shade, I went around the side and shot all these photos with a 400mm,” he said. He noticed a fly circling the president and fired off a long burst. In one frame, his autofocus locked onto the fly rather than Trump, right when the insect flew in front of Trump’s open mouth. “It looked kind of like it was coming out of his mouth,” he said.

Dani Hamm

An example of Hamm’s high-key work, not the original frame that she mentioned.

Dani Hamm (@danigoinghamm) is an adventure, wildlife and nature photographer. Her portfolio is filled with stunning portraits of animals, from tiny birds to massive buffalo. 

When I asked about a mistake that turned out for the better, she instantly had an answer: “Overexposing an image and it ending up being a really cool high-key photo.” The blown-out background stripped away context and left just the animal, and she now creates high-key images on purpose.

Allison Anderson

Allison Anderson (@photoallison) is a travel and lifestyle photographer, videographer and Sony Alpha Ambassador who documents her solo trips all over the world.

Anderson’s mistake took a decade to pay off. Very early on in her photography path, she shot everything as JPEGs, mostly because she didn’t like how much space Raw files took up on cards and hard drives. Then she took a trip to Italy. “When I got home, I went to import all my photos, and I realized that somehow the camera had gotten set to shooting in Raw. And I was so annoyed because the file sizes were enormous,” she said.

She dumped them on a hard drive and forgot about them. “Ten years later, I went back, and I went through the hard drive again, and everything I’d shot at that time was mostly in JPEG except for this one trip that was all in Raw.” Because of that, she was able to edit the file, and one of those images is now printed large and hanging over her fireplace.

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I’m at Sony’s Kando event this week, where Sony invited DPReview to join press, photographers, filmmakers and educators from across its creative community. There’s no new gear being announced here, but the event is a chance to meet people doing genuinely interesting work across a wide range of genres. Below are five of them whose projects, approaches or images caught my attention.

Eli Reed

Calling Eli Reed a creative is like calling the ocean wet; it’s technically true, but wildly insufficient. He was the first Black photographer to join Magnum Photos, coming on in the early 1980s and becoming a full member in 1988. He was also a Pulitzer finalist for his photographs of life in a San Francisco public housing project, and he has taught photojournalism as a clinical professor at UT Austin since 2005.

The core of his work is photojournalism, ranging from Beirut, Haiti and Central America to a decades-long documentation of Black life in America. But he’s also spent years on film sets, photographing Tupac for “Poetic Justice” and stills for “A Beautiful Mind” and “8 Mile.”

Reed has been a Sony Artisan of Imagery since 2014, which is what brought him to Kando. I had the privilege of riding on a bus with him for an hour, listening to him tell stories from past projects and about the people he’s worked with. You can see his work on the Magnum website.

Wild Gina

I love the natural world but prefer tighter images of specific things in it over broad landscapes, so Gina Danza, who goes by Wild Gina, has an approach and a philosophy that resonate with me. Danza is a Sony Alpha Ambassador and Alpha Collective member who describes herself as an intimate landscape photographer and SciArtist, and her work centers on finding what she calls the “intimacy of nature.” In practice, that means a lot of macro and close-focus nature work.

During a panel discussion on this trip, she said she wants her work to feel like a fantasy, or like she’s a kid again. Her images are vibrant and playful, and I love the idea of seeing things with the eyes of a child, when everything still seems fresh. She also collaborates with scientists and shares a great deal of information about what she photographs, which, as someone who strives to be a lifelong learner, is very exciting to see.

Hannah’s Honeycomb

Speaking of macro and science, Hannah Alexander, who posts as Hannah’s Honeycomb, is doing remarkable work in the same close-focus space. She picked up a camera to share insight into beekeeping, and it grew from there. In 2021, she won a Sony Alpha Female+ grant to fund the Pollinator Project, documenting the lives and behavior of pollinator species through stills, video and high-speed slow motion.

An environmental educator by day, Alexander is deeply knowledgeable about all things insect- and plant-related, and she uses her photography to pass that knowledge along and build appreciation for the natural world at that scale. Her photographs of bees, insects and plants show them up close in a way we rarely get to see them. She’s also an ideal person to bring on a photo walk, since she can tell you where to find interesting macro subjects and what you’re looking at.

Criz Quinn

Heading in the opposite direction from macro is Criz Quinn, an aerial photographer and cinematographer who co-founded Aerial Media and serves as its lead photographer. She’s a licensed commercial drone pilot in both the US and EU, and she travels the world shooting aerial landscapes in some genuinely unreal places. She’s part of Sony’s Alpha Female community and won one of its micro-grants, and she’s also a molecular pathologist by training, which puts her in good company on this list.

Surrounded by photographers working with models and chasing wildlife, Quinn pointed out that she photographs “things that don’t move.” Though she’s underselling herself a bit: her subjects may be patient, but the light and the weather aren’t. If aerial work is your thing, she’s worth following on both YouTube and Instagram.

Becca Farsace

Lastly, switching gears again is Becca Farsace, who was The Verge’s senior video producer and the face of much of its camera coverage before going independent in 2024. She now runs her own YouTube channel, where, as she told me, she covers “anything with a battery in it.” That includes cameras and accessories, but also mobility aids, projectors and plenty more. Her videos are highly approachable and engaging, and an easy way to keep up with new tech or trends in the creator space.

The Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year is sharing a sneak peek of the 100 winning images of this year’s contest. This year marks the 62nd edition of the competition, which saw a record 65,403 entries across 121 countries and territories.

The competition recognizes photographs across numerous subjects and approaches, including animal behavior, portraits, underwater scenes, urban wildlife, photojournalism and ecosystem-focused work. It also presents awards for photo stories and portfolios, a Rising Star prize for photographers ages 18–26, and separate age-group awards for young photographers.

While celebrating outstanding nature photography, the contest also aims to deepen public understanding of the natural world and the need to protect it. As Natural History Museum Director Dr. Doug Gurr said, “At a time when nature is under more pressure than ever before, these photographs remind us of both what is at stake and what is worth protecting.”

An international panel of experts in wildlife photography, filmmaking, science and conservation judged the anonymous entries on creativity, originality, technical excellence and storytelling. Category winners and the Grand Title awards will be announced on October 13 at a Natural History Museum ceremony hosted by wildlife presenters and conservationists Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin; the winning images will go on display at the museum in London beginning October 16.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. The full gallery of category winners and the Grand Title recipients will be published on the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year pages following the October 13 ceremony.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year 62 — highly commended preview

The 15 images below are drawn from across the competition’s categories. Descriptions are reproduced as supplied by the Natural History Museum.

Biting Back

Andrea and Maceo Grammatico / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Andrea and Maceo Grammatico

Award: Highly Commended, Animal Portraits

Image title: Biting Back

Image location: Sierpe, South Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Description: Andrea and Maceo Grammatico (France) get a snake’s-eye view of a mosquito drinking a venomous viper’s blood.

Twins Andrea and Maceo describe this image as “one of the most demanding focus stacks we’ve ever created.” It required immense concentration and care. It wasn’t until they reviewed their photographs that they noticed the mosquito on the snake’s head.

The fer-de-lance is a highly venomous viper, responsible for the greatest number of fatal snake bites in Central America. The snake’s effective camouflage and adaptability in plantation habitats occasionally surprises unsuspecting workers.

Technical details: OM System OM-D E-M1 Mark III | OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO | F8 | 1/50 sec | ISO 200 | Godox V860III flash + Cygnustech diffuser | Focus stack of 37 images

Wings of Darkness

Andrew Parkinson / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Andrew Parkinson

Award: Highly Commended, Animal Portraits

Image title: Wings of Darkness

Image location: Meeting of the Waters State Park, Northern Pantanal, Brazil

Description: Andrew Parkinson (UK) spies a black vulture over the carcass of a yacaré caiman in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands.

When Andrew spotted this vulture, it was too good an opportunity to miss. He kept his boat back and used a long telephoto lens to frame what he saw as ‘the menacing nature’ of the vulture. Out of frame, a jaguar was waiting to retrieve the caiman from the water.

After the vulture flew away, the jaguar claimed its prize. It was then that Andrew noticed ‘a suspiciously clean, straight wound’ on the back of the caiman’s head, possibly caused by a blow from a speeding boat.

Technical details: Nikon Z9 | Nikon Nikkor Z 800mm F6.3 VR S | F10 | 1/1600 sec | ISO 800

Flock of Gold

Bence Máté / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Bence Máté

Award: Highly Commended, Behavior: Birds

Image title: Flock of Gold

Image location: Ashnil Aruba Lodge, Tsavo East National Park, Kenya

Description: Bence Máté (Hungary) observes a flock of birds descend to quench their thirst at a small pond.

For Bence, watching in the golden light of a late afternoon, the sight of this swirling mass was breathtaking: “You could feel the rush of air from tens of thousands of wings beating in unison, even from 30 meters (98 feet) away.”

Red-billed queleas are found in almost every part of central, eastern and southern Africa apart from in tropical forests. They gather in groups as large as two million, and the global adult breeding population is estimated to number 1.5 billion, making them the most abundant wild bird on Earth.

Technical details: Sony a9 III | Sony FE 600mm F4 GM OSS + 1.4x teleconverter | F8 | 1/4000 sec | ISO 5000

Mutual Friends

Ernest Porter / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Ernest Porter

Award: Highly Commended, Behavior: Birds 

Image title: Mutual Friends

Image location: Manyeleti Game Reserve, Mpumalanga, South Africa

Description: Ernest Porter (South Africa) is delighted by an oxpecker cleaning its bill against a rhino’s skin in the soft afternoon light.

While searching for wildlife in the reserve, Ernest witnessed a group of white rhinos with red-billed oxpeckers feeding on the insects that infest their skin. He noticed one rhino with a subtle blue ring in his eye, which immediately became his unique muse.

In Swahili, the red-billed oxpecker is called askari wa kifaru, a name that translates to “the rhino’s guard.” Oxpeckers act as sentinels, calling out to alert their hosts to the approach of other dangerous animals.

Technical details: Canon EOS R7 | Canon RF 400mm F2.8 L IS USM | F2.8 | 1/5000 sec | ISO 800

Lifted to the Surface

Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen

Award: Highly Commended, Behavior: Mammals 

Image title: Lifted to the Surface

Image location: Kvænangen, Troms County, Norway

Description: Vegard Byrkjeland Aasen (Norway) watches an adult orca supporting the body of a calf in the freezing waters of a Norwegian fjord.

Vegard had just launched a drone to document sightings for the Norwegian Orca Survey when something caught his attention — an adult orca carrying a deceased calf, occasionally dropping it and then retrieving it as it sank. Although difficult to witness, Vegard felt it was “important to document the moment.”

Cetacean mothers have been known to use their heads to lift newborns to the surface to breathe, raising the possibility that Vegard was witnessing efforts to revive the calf. Some researchers interpret this behavior as a reflection of the deep bond between mothers and calves.

Technical details: DJI Mavic 4 | Hasselblad 28mm equiv. | F2 | 1/50 sec | ISO 640

Up a Tree without a Squirrel

Allegra Hutton / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Allegra Hutton

Award: Highly Commended, Behavior: Mammals

Image title: Up a Tree without a Squirrel

Image location: Okavango Delta, Botswana

Description: Allegra Hutton (USA) watches a young leopard chase a squirrel up a tree in Botswana’s Okavango Delta.

Allegra had already watched the leopard try — and fail — to stalk a rabbit. The squirrel also avoided the leopard’s clumsy maneuvers, eventually ascending too high for the leopard to follow. By then, the cat could barely hang on. An awkward backward retreat ensued.

The world is a dangerous place for young leopards. Less than half of cubs survive to independence. Many are killed by male leopards or fall prey to lions and other predators.

Technical details: Sony a7R V | Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS at 467mm | F11 | 1/640 sec | ISO 4000

Split-Second Escape

Jens Cullmann / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Jens Cullmann

Award: Highly Commended, Behavior: Amphibians and Reptiles

Image title: Split-Second Escape

Image location: Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana

Description: Jens Cullmann (Germany) gets eye-level with an African bullfrog as it lunges for an African babul butterfly — and misses.

Jens noticed tadpoles on a previous visit after heavy rains and returned the following month to find ponds and puddles full of young bullfrogs. He spent more than two weeks watching the young frogs “eat everything that moved.”

As adults, African bullfrogs grow up to 12 centimeters (5 inches) in length, turn a drab green and spend 10 months of the year in a dormant state underground, only emerging after the rains to breed and eat voraciously.

Technical details: Canon EOS R3 | Canon RF 100-300mm F2.8 L IS USM | Canon Extender RF 2x | F9 | 1/4000 sec | ISO 2500

Hidden Dragon

Gil Wizen / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Gil Wizen

Award: Highly Commended, Behavior: Invertebrates

Image title: Hidden Dragon

Image location: Wildsumaco Biological Station, Napo Province, Ecuador

Description: Gil Wizen (Israel/Canada) shares the beauty of this lichen dragon katydid.

At only 15 millimeters (3/5 of an inch) long, this little lichen dragon katydid was not easy to find. Luckily, Gil was able to spot it when it moved slightly, though distinguishing between the katydid and the lichen in the camera’s viewfinder made it challenging to photograph.

Found only in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador, Lichenodraculus matti, or “Matt’s little lichen dragon,” takes part of its scientific name from its discoverer. “Dragon” alludes to the spiny armor that protects it against eagle-eyed predators that see through its disguise.

Technical details: Canon EOS 7D Mark II | Canon EF 100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM | F11 | 1/100 sec | ISO 400 | Canon Speedlite Macro Twin Lite flash + customized diffuser

Calm Amid the Storm

Shane Gross / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Shane Gross

Award: Highly Commended, Oceans: The Bigger Picture

Image title: Calm Amid the Storm

Image location: D’Arros Island, Seychelles

Description: Shane Gross (Canada) slowly approaches a school of bigeye trevally as the morning light breaks and a storm approaches.

Shane noticed this school of fish swimming near the shore every morning at sunrise. Aiming for a split shot, he flipped the camera upside down to aid buoyancy distribution and adjusted his position, slowly approaching the curious school.

Bigeye trevally are fished in many parts of the world, but here they are relatively safe. In 2023, the waters surrounding D’Arros Island were made a Marine Protected Area and designated as no-take zones as part of the worldwide initiative for governments to protect 30% of Earth’s land and ocean by 2030.

Technical details: Nikon D500 | Tokina AT-X 107 DX Fisheye 10-17mm F3.5-4.5 | F16 | 1/200 sec | ISO 500 | Aquatica AD500 housing | 2x YS-250 Sea & Sea strobes

Pooltime Pastime

Loren Elliott / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Loren Elliott

Award: Highly Commended, Urban Wildlife

Image title: Pooltime Pastime

Image location: Monrovia, California, USA

Description: Loren Elliott (USA) observes a black bear stopping for a dip in a southern California pool.

Loren spent many hours watching through the kitchen window of a local resident’s home to photograph bears that frequently pass through this yard. “I most like how it shows the very common overlap of wildlife and residential living in Los Angeles County,” he says.

Where housing developments have spread into the bear’s habitat, human–bear coexistence is increasingly challenging. The owner recognizes that he is living in “bear country” and endeavors to be a responsible resident, ensuring no food is left out and doors and windows are kept shut.

Technical details: Sony a9 II | Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II at 24mm | F4 | 1/1000 sec | ISO 320

Ocean Protector

Ralph Pace / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Ralph Pace

Award: Highly Commended, Wetlands: The Bigger Picture

Image title: Ocean Protector

Image location: Monterey Bay, California, USA

Description: Ralph Pace (USA) glimpses a sea hare gliding through an eelgrass meadow in Monterey Bay.

In the shallows of Monterey Bay on the Pacific coast of the USA, the evening light traces the silhouette that earned this sea slug its name — sea hare. Ralph wanted to depict an unexpected, hopeful scene of “a gentle giant safeguarding the last green meadows of the sea.”

Sea hares play an important role in the restoration of eelgrass meadows by grazing on the red algae that block sunlight to the meadow. Eelgrass is vital for coastal ecosystems and is an important carbon sink.

Technical details: Nikon D850 | Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28-70mm F2.8D ED-IF AF | F18 | 0.6 sec | Sea & Sea strobes

The Show Goes On

Pietro Rojas / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Pietro Rojas

Award: Highly Commended, Photojournalism

Image title: The Show Goes On

Image location: Doha, Qatar

Description: Pietro Rojas (Guatemala) documents a brown bear riding a small motorcycle, muzzled and secured to the apparatus as it circles a circus ring in Doha.

Noticing that a circus with animal acts was in town, Pietro decided to document it. What he found most compelling about this image was “the contrast between the wild nature of the animal and the human environment imposed upon it.”

Many countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses. Where brown bears are used, they often are trained to perform in unnatural postures like standing upright for long periods of time, contributing to health and behavioral problems.

Technical details: Leica Q3 43 | Leica Apo-Summicron 43mm F2 ASPH. | F2.5 | 1/500 sec | ISO 400

Eye of the Storm

Dewald Tromp / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Dewald Tromp

Award: Highly Commended, Animals in Their Environment

Image title: Eye of the Storm

Image location: Namib Desert, near Swakopmund, Namibia

Description: Dewald Tromp (South Africa) witnesses a chameleon battling a sandstorm in the Namib Desert.

The wind picked up as Dewald was photographing this Namaqua chameleon weathering the sudden storm. Soon, it became difficult to breathe and “in a matter of seconds, you could hardly see the person next to you,” Dewald recalls.

Namaqua chameleons are insectivorous desert specialists, harvesting moisture from the air directly. Droplets that collect on their skin as dew are channeled to their mouths via microscopic surface grooves. They also use their tongue to collect fog water condensed on vegetation, sand and rocks.

Technical details: Nikon D850 | Nikon AF-S Nikkor 300mm F4E PF ED VR | F8 | 1/1250 sec | ISO 400

Urban Wanderer

Sora Miyazawa / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Sora Miyazawa

Award: Highly Commended, 11–14 Years

Image title: Urban Wanderer

Image location: Tokyo, Japan

Description: Sora Miyazawa (Japan) focuses on an Eastern Japanese toad as it wanders through the street after a rainfall.

Sora chanced upon this toad in the heart of one of the world’s largest cities, Tokyo. With a slow shutter speed, he composed the image before the toad hopped back into the bushes from where it had emerged.

Exactly how this species thrives in a city of 14 million people is unclear. Toads are more successful than other amphibians at dispersing and surviving in new habitats, including in urban environments like this one.

Technical details: Nikon Z6 III | Nikon Nikkor Z 24-120mm F4 S at 24mm | F4 | 1/10 sec | ISO 200

The Art of Flying

Jack Crockford / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Jack Crockford

Award: Highly Commended, 15–17 Years

Image title: The Art of Flying

Image location: London, England, UK

Description: Jack Crockford (UK) watches as a low-flying swift passes by, its shape echoed by an incoming plane to Heathrow Airport.

Jack observed swifts flying overhead, completing their yearly migration back to London and filling the air with their piercing, high-pitched calls. Most were flying too high to photograph, but occasional low-flyers allowed Jack to get the composition he’d been hoping for.

Swifts’ physical characteristics allow them to migrate from equatorial and southern Africa to breeding grounds in northern Europe. Their long, scythe-shaped wings enable exceptional speed and maneuverability. Living almost their entire lives in the air, they usually only land when they’re ready to breed.

Technical details: Nikon D500 | Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-500mm F5.6E ED VR at 350mm (525mm equiv.) | F8 | 1/5000 sec | ISO 1600

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Every photographer knows the drill. You return from a trip, start copying photos from your memory cards, pour a coffee, and begin culling your images. Or some variation of that. And somewhere in that process, something strange begins to happen.

The photos you actually traveled to take – the ones that required you to arrive early to get a spot for your tripod – get a quick look, maybe even an edit, and then a shrug before you move on.

Meanwhile, a spontaneous shot of your friends pretending to do a fashion shoot in France gets exported and shared.

I’ve been doing this long enough to recognize the pattern, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

Dale Baskin

The pull of iconic places

There’s a gravitational force to photograph famous places. You’re standing above Machu Picchu at sunrise, or below the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and it feels almost negligent not to take a great photo of it. That’s the draw. It’s why you’re there. And it’s why there are often several hundred other people with cameras right next to you, trying to do the same thing.

I’m not suggesting you skip these photos, but before you spend half a day of your valuable travel time on one of them, it’s worth asking a simple question: Why am I doing this?

Dale Baskin

Dale Baskin

Sometimes, the answer is genuinely good. Maybe you’ve been thinking about how to photograph the place for years and have a real vision for it – a unique angle or treatment that’s different from what everyone else has done. There are always new ways to photograph something that’s already been photographed a million times, and if you’re the person with that vision, that’s a gift. Go for it.

More often than not, however, the answer is that it’s an exercise. Photography is a craft and a skill, and one that requires repetition. Some of the most useful photos I’ve ever taken were mediocre pictures of famous things, because the mistakes I made taking them taught me something I later used.

And occasionally, you really do just get lucky. You’re standing somewhere right when the weather or the light does something extraordinary, and if you’re ready, you capture something rare. Luck, as the saying goes, is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Taking a lot of unremarkable photos of iconic places is the kind of preparation that leaves you ready to act when that chance alignment of magic factors finally happens.

Dale Baskin

But sometimes, the honest answer is just that “you’re there,” and you feel like you should photograph whatever the thing is. That’s the one worth examining, because if the result is going to be identical to several million photos already on the internet, you’ve spent something valuable – your time on a trip you might never repeat – to produce a duplicate.

Then, there’s a middle path, and one I find myself embracing more often: if you’re going to shoot the icon, do something to personalize it and make it yours. Put someone you’re traveling with in the frame, or find something in the foreground that creates a humorous juxtaposition. It won’t be fine art, and it probably won’t win any awards. But then again, was your technically perfect shot going to win any in the first place?

The photos that matter

There’s a truism about travel stories: Nobody ever goes to a dinner party and tells stories about what went right on a trip.

Dale Baskin

The stories that land, and the ones people actually listen to rather than finding an excuse to return to the buffet for another piece of shrimp cocktail, are the ones where things went sideways. The trip where you went to one country, but your luggage went to another. The “hotel with a view” whose view turned out to be an alley full of dumpsters. Or the food poisoning that arrived courtesy of a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Photography works the same way. The frames that survive for years and decades are almost never the postcard-perfect shots. They’re the small vignettes, like a spontaneous photo with friends in a French village or the street vendor in Buenos Aires where you had the best food of your entire adventure.

Dale Baskin

When I was younger, I came home from a lot of trips with a lot of photos of famous things. Some were pretty good. A lot more were pretty mediocre. But what I learned pretty quickly was that, regardless of how good they were, other people were rarely that interested in looking at those photos.

What they did respond to were the candid, unstructured, and often just plain weird photos that captured the essence of the trip. Years later, those were the ones I cared about too.

So, shoot the icon if you want to shoot the icon. Just don’t let it take over your trip. Keep your camera ready during the in-between moments, the ones that don’t feel important when they’re happening. Odds are good that one of them is the photograph you’ll still be looking at in twenty years.

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In the lead-up to the total solar eclipse on August 12th, we asked our community members who would be in its path to share the best photos they took of it. It ended up being a very special event, too; typically, you need a solar filter to shoot the sun in any form, making it the only thing you can see in the frame. But because this eclipse happened when the sun was so low on the horizon, it allowed people to capture it like they would a typical sunset photo, with the landscape visible in front of it.

Despite the brief window of time and relatively limited area it was visible from, our community absolutely delivered on the opportunity, capturing and sharing some incredible shots. Here are a few (but not all) of our favorites.

Total eclipse images

The main event of a solar eclipse – what gets people to spend hours or even days traveling to a surely crowded area – is the moment of totality, where the sun is completely blocked by the moon. And while it’s easy for most pictures of this moment to turn out very similar, some of our readers found interesting ways to capture it, putting it in context.

Abenjaldun

User Abenjaldun captured this image in Cerceda, Spain, where the totality lasted around 35″.

ml6

This photo from user ml6 was one of several they posted showing the moment of totality. While others in the gallery show it in more detail, this one captures the feeling of the moment, of being surrounded by people all experiencing – and trying to capture – the same thing as you.

ARSPR

This image captured by user ARSPR shows a solar flare erupting from the sun at the moment of eclipse. ARSPR says they shot the image planning to use the ISO invariance of the Sony a6700’s sensor to brighten it later, though this particular photo is an out-of-camera JPEG.

Partial eclipse images

While pictures of the total eclipse are striking, partial eclipses are visible in more places, so more people have a chance to photograph them. And, because there’s more light, it’s easier to capture the scene around it, while still producing a beautiful image.

Jonathan MacDonald

User Jonathan Mac managed to get several great photos from the eclipse, despite saying that this was their first time photographing (or even experiencing) one. Jonathan began researching what gear and techniques would be required to capture it back in December, and says it’s their “longest and most complicated photography project” to date. That work, and the fact that the eclipse combined with a sunset, paid off, resulting in a frame that looks straight out of a classic sci-fi movie.

TheDispossessed

Normally, clouds rolling in would ruin the chance to take pictures of celestial events, but user TheDispossessed was able to capture a moment where they heightened the experience, instead of detracting from it. The photo was taken in Durham, and TheDispossessed says it was just in the nick of time; the sun apparently disappeared right after they pressed the shutter.

RFB97

Speaking of clouds and sci-fi, user RFB97 says they left their telephoto lens at home, but were able to improvise with their dad’s Nikon P1000 to get a close-up of the partial eclipse as seen from Algeria. RFB97 missed seeing the full eclipse because it happened as the sun was setting, and seems disappointed in the photo they captured because of the heat waves and lack of detail, but we think the image turned out really well.

cbf_si

User cbf_si took this photo near Slovenia’s highest mountain, resulting in a landscape shot so beautiful, you might be forgiven for missing the fact that an eclipse is happening during it.

Didier_Fr

Didier_Fr chose to visit the Saint-Mathieu lighthouse in the west of France to capture the eclipse, which seems like an inspired choice. I’m personally a sucker for images of light sources with the sun behind them, and the cool-factor of it is substantially higher when the light is coming from the partially-obscured sun.

Finally, two of our users, t_3, in Germany and Eric_., in Cambridge, UK, took a crack at the timelapse format that’s always popular with eclipses.

t_3

Eric_.

Through a different lens

One of the most interesting effects of a solar eclipse is that it turns everyday objects into cameras obscura – anything with a hole in it that’s the correct size will project an image of the event onto the surface behind it, resulting in bizarre and lovely patterns of light and shade. A few of our users captured this effect in some truly stunning pictures.

Daneland

User Daneland says this photo shows the sunlight filtering through a tree’s leaves, projecting dozens of tiny eclipses onto the face of a Chinese restaurant.

BratPix

User BratPix says they were just outside of Paris, watching the eclipse on TV, when they noticed that the eclipse was being projected into their kitchen.

See the rest

This article highlights only a few of the wide selection of great photos that our users have sent in, and we expect we’ll see more throughout the day as people continue to edit and post their work. It’s well worth taking a look through the entire thread, as there’s a lot of really good stuff in there that we just didn’t have room to fit into this article. And if you took any photos of the eclipse, be sure to drop them in!

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