This year’s nature-photography competition attracted more than 8,000 entries in different categories celebrating the natural world: Animal Behavior, Camera Traps, Landscapes, Small World, The Night Sky, Underwater, Urban Wildlife, Wild Portraits, and an Under-17 award. Organizers at Nature TTL were once more kind enough to share some of the winners and runners-up below. Captions were written by the photographers and lightly edited for style.
Winners of the Nature TTL Photographer of the Year 2023
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Crowd Control. Underwater Runner-Up. Every winter, enormous schools of herring migrate from the open ocean into the fjords of northern Norway and attract large numbers of big predators, such as orcas and humpback whales. Witnessing orcas feeding on herring using the so-called carousel feeding technique is very exciting but not easy to capture because of various factors: limited light and visibility, fast-paced action, plus cold surface and water temperature. Being able to freedive and capture the action in an ongoing feeding frenzy in these conditions is difficult, but I managed to capture this female orca splitting a herring bait ball. #
© Andy Schmid / Nature TTL -
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Traffic Intersection. Urban Wildlife Runner-Up. I really wanted to do some photography one evening, but without light, this is always difficult. So I went to a pedestrian bridge that offered a direct view of one of the main traffic intersections in our city. There were many spiders on the railing of this bridge. Using an old analog lens, I photographed a spider in front of the colorful lights of the city intersection with the many cars. #
© Simone Baumeister / Nature TTL -
Fading Away. Wild Portraits Runner-Up. A great blue heron fades away in the green light on the coast of Florida. The green light is actually the reflection of a traffic light in the water. Purposefully, I focused on the green background of the bird and used intentional camera movement to give this image a fading perspective. #
© Robert Gloeckner / Nature TTL -
Fighting Robins. Animal Behavior Runner-Up. In spring, the cute-looking robin, as seen on our Christmas cards, becomes an aggressive defender of territory and breeding rights. In April 2021, I witnessed these two European robins playing out their battles in front of me in Scotland. #
© Jane Hope / Nature TTL -
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Seal Hunting. Animal Behavior Winner. We witnessed a polar bear's patience during a sleepy hunt on the ice in Svalbard's frozen expanse. This male polar bear stalked seals at their breathing holes. After they evaded him, he opted to rest, vigilant and patient. #
© Florian Ledoux / Nature TTL -
Crossing Barriers. Camera Traps Winner. This jaguar had been seen before, so I decided to place a camera trap in a broken wall that led to the jungle. I placed one of the flashes strategically to get the jaguar's shadow on the wall behind it. Solidaridad, Quintana Roo, Mexico. #
© Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar / Nature TTL -
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Milky Way. The Night Sky Winner. This picture was taken with a remote-controlled camera placed in a fish tank. Luckily, the wild boar stood still for the moment the picture was taken. In Hungary, where this composition was captured, the Milky Way is very rarely low enough in the sky to touch the horizon, and this phenomenon occurs only for a few days in the month of August. #
© Bence Mate / Nature TTL -
Walk on the Hill. Under 17 Runner-Up. We were bird-ringing with my friends during our winter school break in Tápióság, Hungary. In the setting sun, I spotted these deer on top of a small hill. They were quite far away, but I managed to create a nice composition. #
© Ákos Őrsi / Nature TTL -
House Hunting. Under 17 Winner. On a walk in Staffordshire, U.K., I was alerted to the presence of this swarm by a loud buzzing sound. I cautiously walked into the center of the swarm, where thousands of bees were crawling over a branch. It was important to remain calm, so although I was apprehensive about having hundreds of bees crawling over me, their well-being was my priority. #
© Lucy Monckton / Nature TTL -
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Caring Parent. Camera Traps Runner-Up. The next generation of the common blackbird lives in the bathroom window of my friend's cottage in the Czech Republic. I watched their behavior for many hours, and the presence of my camera did not bother them, even when feeding. #
© Igor Mikula / Nature TTL -
Austfonna Ice Cap. Overall Winner & Category Winner, Landscapes. Austfonna Ice Cap, the world's third-largest, on Nordaustlandet Island in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, covers about 8,000 square kilometers. It is melting at alarming rates because of global warming and is contributing to rising sea levels, a grave concern. I visited the ice cap and captured this striking image of a waterfall created by the melting ice. #
© Thomas Vijayan / Nature TTL
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