BANGALORE, Aug 7: The results of the Nature inFocus Photography Awards were announced at the Nature inFocus Festival 2023 held at Jayamahal Palace, Bangalore. On Saturday, July 29, the winners were presented during a grand awards ceremony graced by chief guest Dia Mirza, Actor, Producer & UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador.

The winning images this year include:

■ A portrait of a Bonobo as she looks after a mongoose pup like a pet

■ A gorgeous wildscape of two male Nubian Ibexes battling for the right to mate in Zin Desert, Israel

■ The magic of Ranthambhore captured in a single frame—its historic architecture, iconic species and stunning landscape

■ Gorgeous action shot of a rarelyseen natural history moment where a tiger fishes out a softshell turtle for lunch

■ Yet another phenomenal documentation of a rare natural history moment where a tiger feasts on a leopard

■ A cetacean avalanche in the beautifully lit waters of the Pacific Ocean as a large pod of Spinner Dolphins dive back into the ocean

■ TOI photojournalist captured a conflict scenario where the forest department attempts to remove a wild tusker that had entered a village near Nagarahole

■ Dragonflies or inflorescence? In the animal world, mimicry is the best defence mechanism

■ One of the rarest cats in the world, the Amur Leopard, caught on camera trap!

■ Photostory on the mangroves of Godavari shows the magnitude and scale of mangrove destruction everywhere in the world Nature inFocus Photography Awards 2023—The Winners Submissions for this year’s awards closed on June 15th and received 24,000 images from more than 1,500 competing photographers.

■ Srikanth Mannepuri, wildlife conservationist, photographer and filmmaker won the Photographer Of The Year – Portfolio title. Sri Lankan photographer Lalith Ekanayake won a Special Mention prize.

■ In the Animal Behaviour category, Afroj Sheikh, Avinash PC and Sankhesh Dedhia were the winners.

■ For Animal Portraits, Christian Ziegler, Morup Namgail and Suliman Alatiqi took away the accolades.

■ For Conservation Focus it was Hiren Pagi, Jo Anne McArthur and Lalith Ekanayake who shared the best images.

■ Arkaprava Ghosh, Anirban Dutta and Kai Kolodziej won the Creative Nature Photography category

■ Amit Eshel, Dileep SS and Navin Kumar won the Wildscape & Animals in Their Habitat category.

■ Arnav Deshpande, Jomtup Charoenlapnumchai and Pranav Mahendru won the Young Photographer category. Over the years, the contest has seen an increase in participation not just from wildlife and nature photographers across India but also from various parts of the world.

“The Nature inFocus Photography Awards has grown to become a meeting place for national and international photographers,” says Rohit Varma, one of the founders of Nature inFocus. “Every year, we see images that reveal new facets of our natural world while shining a light on pertinent global conservation issues. We are thrilled to see the growth in the number of participants and the geographical locations. It truly has become an international platform for wildlife photographers!”