Βραβείο στους ελέφαντες. Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2013: The Most Spectacular Pictures Of The Natural World

«Essence of elephants» του Γκρεγκ ντυ Τουά, η νικήτρια φωτογραφία του διαγωνισμού Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013. The overall winner of the 2013 Wildlife Photographer of the Year is Greg du Toit (South Africa) for his photo Essence of Elephants. He said: "I’ve wanted to create an image that captures their special energy and the state of consciousness that I sense when I’m with them. This image comes closest to doing that." © Greg du Toit/ Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Ένα «μυστηριακό» όπως το χαρακτήρισαν οι κριτές πορτρέτο αφρικανικών ελεφάντων από τον νοτιοαφρικανό φωτογράφο Γκρεγκ ντυ Τουά απέσπασε το πρώτο βραβείο του Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013, του σημαντικότερου ίσως διαγωνισμού φωτογραφίας της άγριας ζωής που διοργανώνεται από το Μουσείο Φυσικής Ιστορίας του Λονδίνου και το BBC Worldwide. Το «Essence  of elephants» επελέγη από διεθνή κριτική επιτροπή ανάμεσα σε 43.000 φωτογραφίες από όλο τον κόσμο.

«Mother's little headful», του Ουαντάγιαν Ράο Παουάρ, βραβείο Youth Photographer of the Year 2013. Fourteen year-old Udayan Rao Pawar (India) is junior overall winner for a nesting colony of gharial crocodiles. "I could hear them making little grunting sounds," he said. "Very soon a large female surfaced near the shore, checking on her charges. Some of the hatchlings swam to her and climbed onto her head. Perhaps it made them feel safe." It turned out that she was the chief female of the group, looking after all the hatchlings.

Το «Mother’s little heedful», ένα «οικογενειακό ενσταντανέ» κροκοδείλων από τον 14χρονο Ουντάγιαν Ράο Παουάρ από την Ινδία κέρδισε το βραβείο Youth Photographer of the Year 2013.

Isak Pretorius (South Africa) is winner of the Behaviour Birds category. He captured this lesser noddy caught in a colossal spider's net on the Seychelles island. He explained that it was "a bit of an eerie picture because the bird is still alive, you can see the pain and the inevitable story that’s evolving. It strikes an emotional chord". Even if they struggle free, the silk clogs up their feathers so they can’t fly.

Harvest gold: Late one July evening, walking slowly along the edge of a wheat field near his village – Cousset, in Switzerland – looking for subjects to photograph, Etienne noticed ‘a little ball’ stuck to an ear of wheat. ‘To my surprise,’ says Etienne, ‘it was a harvest mouse, nibbling the grain.’ Etienne approached until he was a few metres away and managed to photograph the tiny mouse at various angles before it scuttled back down the wheat stalk. ‘The meeting was brief but extraordinary,’ he adds. ‘This was my favourite out of all the portraits,’ showing it eating, its prehensile tail helping it to balance. Picture: Etienne Francey

Sharing a shower: Scientists have long thought that the main reason that lions band together is to hunt – that food, essentially, is the evolutionary force behind their social bonds. Recently, though, it has emerged that the close bonds between males are moulded by another pressure: the actions of mutual rivals. C-Boy, a black-maned male lion, and his coalition partner Hildur, once controlled a superior territory in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, but they were deposed by a squad of four males known to researchers as the Killers. Nick came across C-boy and Hildur hunkered down in the rain. Though he had spent many months photographing Serengeti lions, he had spent most of his time with larger prides of females. ‘I had never before seen these two senior coalition males together,’ he says. They were used to the car that Nick was in, so he was able to use a simple zoom lens and ambient light. The rain isn’t as unwelcome as their expressions suggest: when water is scarce, the closely bonded pair lick drops from their own and each other’s fur. Picture: Michael Nichols/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Magic mushrooms: The taller of these two parasol mushrooms is just 30 centimetres. That is tall for a parasol, but their prominence against the tree trunks behind is a slight optical illusion, the result of a double exposure, in-camera. Agorastos found the fungi growing in woodland in the Grevena region of Greece, and was fascinated by the subtle browns of the scales of their ‘skins’ and their relationship to each other. Photographing them from ground level, he chose to expose separately for the young spruce trees, using their trunks as a frame for the emerging fruiting bodies, and to set them against the backdrop of light coming through the autumn leaves at the woodland edge. What he wanted to capture was the fairytale feel of the scene. ‘Nature is the true designer,’ he says. Picture: Agorastos Papatsanis

Cold-blooded killing: Corcovado National Park, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, is accessible only by boat or aircraft. Early one morning, Alejandro heard there were bull sharks near the beach and set off to look for them. It wasn’t long before he heard a very loud noise – splashing and a hammering sound. Out of the sea came a huge crocodile with a large green turtle in its mouth, which was flapping its flippers and opening and closing its eyes. ‘With a fast movement, the crocodile held the turtle by its flipper,’ says Alejandro, ‘and then, with a flick of its jaws, grabbed the still-living reptile by its head. I willed the crocodile to be still for a moment, while I struggled to keep the camera steady.’ He managed just one shot before the crocodile headed for the sea and the mouth of the river, clutching its strange prey. Picture: Alejandro Prieto

Pearls of spring: Each year Solvin marks the end of winter by going into the field to photograph toads emerging from hibernation and migrating to their breeding ponds. This time he went to Solling, in western Germany, a wildlife haven with both forests and wetlands. As the ponds began to boil with mating toads, he chose his location and carefully lowered his camera and strobes into the water, trying to avoid disturbing either the toads or the muddy bottom. By linking his camera to his laptop with a special USB wire, he could see all the activity below the surface and take intimate, non-invasive pictures. ‘To me the toadspawn looks like threaded black pearls,’ says Solvin, ‘neatly arranged in the scenery.’ He was captivated by the event, as he has been since childhood, and rejoiced in the spring sunlight and the sounds of frogs, toads and running water – ‘all somehow reassuring after the long winter’. Picture: Solvin Zankl

Sockeye catch: Each year between July and September, millions of sockeye salmon migrate from the Pacific back up rivers to the fresh waters of Lake Kuril, to spawn in the waters where they were born. This volcanic crater lake, in the South Kamchatka Sanctuary in the Russian Far East, is the largest sockeye salmon spawning ground in Eurasia. The annual glut attracts Kamchatka brown bears from the surrounding forests to feast on the fish and fatten up for hibernation. Following the example of the bears, Valter waded into the icy water to get the right perspective and to wait for an action moment – a real test of physical endurance. By doing so, ‘I almost became one of them,’ and ‘in the silence of the Garden of Eden I did not think about anything else.’ This bear reared up some three metres on its hind legs and scanned the water for fish. Suddenly it pounced on a female salmon swollen with roe, the force sending a string of crimson eggs spinning out of her body. Picture: Valter Bernardeschi

Eye of a toad: Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. ‘I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians,’ he says, ‘at water level.’ Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was ‘the glorious pool of sunset colour’ and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Picture: Lukasz Bozycki

'The Water Bear'. Paul Souders/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

'The Spat'. Joe McDonald/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

'Lucky Pounce'. Connor Stefanison/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

'The Cauldron'. Sergey Gorshkov/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Οι δυο φωτογραφίες κρίθηκαν οι καλύτερες από τις «νικήτριες» 18 διαφορετικών κατηγοριών οι οποίες συλλαμβάνουν τη φύση σε διάφορες στιγμές της, απεικονίζοντας από τη συμπεριφορά των ζώων ως εντυπωσιακά τοπία. Μαζί με άλλες εικόνες που ξεχώρισαν ανάμεσα στις υποψηφιότητες αποτελούν το αντικείμενο έκθεσης η οποία παρουσιάζεται στο Μουσείο Φυσικής Ιστορίας του Λονδίνου (18 Οκτωβρίου 2013 – 23 Μαρτίου 2014) και θα ταξιδέψει στη συνέχεια σε πολλές χώρες του κόσμου.