The winners of the 2022 Nature inFocus Photography Awards feature a spectacular assortment of wildlife moments, including a rare glimpse of a jaguar prowling through a village in Mexico, a pair of feral dogs unexpectedly encountering a porcupine, and a hungry wolf taking on a termite mound.
Founded back in 2014 as a community platform to bring together like-minded nature photographers in India, the annual Nature inFocus competition has quickly grown into an impressive international photography contest. This year the contest garnered 21,000 entries from all corners of the globe.
“Every year, we see images that reveal new facets of our natural world while shining a light on pertinent global conservation issues," said Rohit Varma, one of the founders of the contest. "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!”
Alongside the five straightforward categories – Animal Portraits, Animal Behavior, Conservation Issues, Creative Nature Photography, and Wildlife & Animals in Habitat – this year an overall Photographer of the Year award has been added that focuses on a portfolio of images. The inaugural Photographer of the Year went to Fernando Constantino Martínez Belmar, a photographer from Mexico.
The winning portfolio was titled Balam – The Endangered King of the Mayan Jungle. It told the story of the endangered Jaguar, which has been forced to engage with human settlements as its natural habitats have been destroyed through deforestation.
Other highlights from this year's contest also focus on the way apex predators have been confronting local communities of people. Nejib Ahmed's evocative Conservation Focus category winner shows a group of villagers near a tiger reserve in Assam panicking when one of the predators came too close for comfort.
"While the tigress ran amok, so did the people trying to flee the area," explained Ahmed of the encounter. "One villager tried to confront the animal and was inflicted with minor injuries. The tigress eventually retreated into the forest. The image portrays the ground realities of human-tiger conflict and emphasizes the need for empowering local communities to manage these situations."
Take a look through our gallery at more highlights from this year's contest.
Source: Nature inFocus