40 Images That Were Selected As Winners And Finalists Of This Year’s Big Picture Photography Contest

Every category has a first-place winner who gets $1000 each, while the Grand Prize winner is awarded $5000.

Rhonda Rubinstein, the creative director and co-founder of BigPicture, previously shared: “Each photograph is judged on originality (unique perspectives, rarely captured moments), overall impact (evokes the diversity of life, inspires conservation, tells a cohesive story), aesthetic merit (composition, lighting, framing, perspective, use of color, etc.) and technical excellence (sharp, exposure, depth of field, tonal range)."

In this year’s competition, BigPicture invited Suzi Eszterhas, an award-winning wildlife photographer, to judge the entries alongside six other judges.

Suzi shared her thoughts on BigPicture on their website: “BigPicture has become one of the most prestigious nature photography contests in the world. Every year, the judging panel has the privilege of seeing thousands of exquisite images from all corners of the globe, so many of which just blow your mind.”

Bored Panda reached out to Douglas Gimesy, the winner in the category Human/Nature, and Andreas Schmid, the finalist in the category Aquatic Life, to learn more about their images.

Douglas took an image called ‘Bare nose to bare-nosed wombat’. We were curious to learn more about the inspiration behind his winning photograph. Douglas shared: “I have been documenting the work at this wildlife rescuer’s home over several years now, and this time, I was actually there to document the care and feeding of a rescued baby echidna (puggle). However, when Aldana was feeding Maude, I noticed how beautiful the natural light was coming in from a nearby window. so I started to take some images, and at the end of feeding, she touched her nose to Maude’s, and I took this image.”Douglas also shared what he likes about this image. “Technically what I really like this image is that no flash was used. I’ve become very conscious over the last few years of the potential stresses that flash can have on wildlife, so these days, I try to minimize its use when I can.”

Since this photo highlights the decline of wombats and the role we play in their survival, we were curious to know what Douglas would like for people to take away from it. He wrote: “Of course, whilst it's a huge honor to receive such an award, most importantly I hope the publicity does three things: Firstly, raises awareness about the importance of ALWAYS checking a dead marsupial’s pouch, or at least calling a wildlife rescue organization to do so.

In Australia, we have a lot of marsupial road trauma, and Maude would have probably died a horrible death, all alone, if someone hadn’t bothered to check her dead mum's pouch.

Secondly, I hope my image helps people fall in love with wombats. Strangely not everyone loves this amazing, important, and cute animal. Whilst sometimes called a ‘common wombat’, they are actually becoming less and less common, with habitat destruction (not ‘loss’ – please see here why) taking an awful toll - like it does for most wildlife.

And finally, I hope this image shines a light on those people who give their love, their care, their time, and comfort to our injured, vulnerable and orphaned young wildlife.

They never get enough recognition in my opinion.”

Andreas took an image called "Crowd Control". We asked him to describe the process of capturing this photograph and what inspired him to focus on this particular behavior of Norwegian orcas. Andreas wrote: “I've been traveling to Norway to experience and document the herring migration into the fjords of Northern Norway for the last 6 years. Seeing orcas working together to push the herring up towards the surface and herding them into a bait ball is the most impressive wildlife behavior that I've seen and every time I see it, I discover something new that I wasn't aware of before. There is still so much that I don't know and haven't seen which will keep me coming back. As a tour guide and photographer, I see it as my responsibility to help raise awareness of the challenges orcas are facing and how we humans are impacting their lives and how we can reduce that impact.”

The photo beautifully captures the donut-like shape formed by the orcas herding their prey. We asked Andreas to explain the technical challenges that he faced while capturing this specific moment.

“When orcas have a bait ball, the water turns messy really quick. Orcas don't just swallow the fish, they fillet them and spit out their heads and bones along with other bits, so the water gets murky and the sea fills with floating fish pieces and scales. This means that the window of opportunity for clear shots on a bait ball is short and being there in time and acting fast is key. Saying that, swimming up to the bait ball in cold, Arctic water at a high pace and then freediving is the next challenge, being short of breath from all the swimming. On top of that come the light conditions because this far up in the North the days are very short that time of the year (the herring migration happens from around mid-October to January or February) and you need to push your camera to the limits in terms of exposure settings. To get results like this photo, the only way is to try over and over again with a lot of trial and error involved.”

And lastly, we were curious to know if Andreas could share any interesting observations or experiences while witnessing this behavior. He replied: “It's fascinating how focused the orcas are when they are feeding. Although I'm sure they are aware of our presence, it feels like they don't see us or simply ignore us while they are working the herring. It also never happens that they mistakenly bump into you while swimming past you or anything like that. It's almost like you are only there in their element as a virtual spectator that is not recognizable to them and they just carry on doing what they do.”