Overall Winner
Photograph by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic
Emperor penguins rocket toward an exit hole in the ice in the winning picture of the 2012 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, announced last Wednesday.
To get the shot—taken in Antarctica's Ross Sea for a
new National Geographic article—photographer
Paul Nicklen used polar survival skills he'd learned as a child among
the Inuit on Canada's Baffin Island. Nicklen began by lowering himself
through a hole in the ice and breathed through a snorkel while waiting
for the penguins to return from foraging.
"They soared underwater like fighter jets in a dogfight," Nicklen
told National Geographic's Luna Shyr.
"Then they'd fly out, land, push down with their bill, and stand up,
going back to that slow, waddling bird. It was a privilege to see." (Get
more behind-the-scenes details.)
In a statement, competition judge
David Doubilet
said "Bubble-Jetting Penguins"—which also took top honors in the
Underwater Worlds category—"draws us in for a glimpse of the emperor
penguin's private world at the end of the Earth. I love this image,
because it shows perfectly organized, infinite chaos. My eyes linger
over it trying to absorb everything that's going on here." (See
more emperor penguin pictures by Paul Nicklen.)
Now
in its 48th year, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is
an "international showcase for the very best nature photography,"
according to the website for the contest, run by London's
Natural History Museum and
Wildlife magazine.
Each year an international jury of photographers judges tens of thousands of entries in 18 categories.
—Ker Than
Eric Hosking Portfolio Award
Photograph courtesy Vladimir Medvedev, VEWPOY
Vladimir Medvedev was driving through Canada's
Jasper National Park when
he spotted a red deer stag lying in the grass by the highway. The
photographer pulled over and swiftly positioned his tripod and snapped
this picture just as a truck thundered by.
After taking the
picture, Medvedev left as quickly as possible to ensure the deer's
peace. "The stag may have been inconspicuous, but I wasn't," he said in a
statement. "As long as I stayed there, he was no longer invisible. So I
left straight away, so as not to betray his presence."
The
shot, titled "Life in the Border Zones," won Medvedev the Eric Hosking
Portfolio Award, intended for photographers aged 18 to 26 who submit
portfolios of their best work.
Commended, World in Our Hands Award
Photograph courtesy Paul Hilton, VEWPOY
Workers at the
Donggang fish market in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, process frozen shark fins to help meet a growing worldwide demand for
shark-fin soup.
"It was sobering to think how many sharks had been killed to produce
this pile of fins for a soup that isn't even healthy," photographer Paul
Hilton said in a statement about his picture, titled "The End of
Sharks." The image was a runner-up for the World in Our Hands Award,
focused on the "relationship between people and the environment."
An increasingly popular dish among the middle-class in
China,
shark-fin soup is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of
sharks annually, scientists say. Many sharks are taken solely for their
fins and then thrown back in the ocean, where it takes several hours for
the fish to die.
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