WPOTY
Winner 2020, UnderWater The golden moment by Songda Cai, China
A tiny diamondback squid paralarva flits below in the blackness, stops hunting for an instant when caught in the light beam, gilds itself in shimmering gold and then moves gracefully out of the light. The beam was Songda’s, on a night dive over deep water, far off the coast of Anilao, in the Philippines. All sorts of larvae and other tiny animals migrate up from the depths under cover of night to feed on surface-dwelling phytoplankton, and after them come other predators. Diamondback squid are widespread in tropical and subtropical oceans and in November, hundreds gather off Anilao to spawn.
A paralarva is the stage between hatchling and subadult, already recognisable as a squid, herew six to seven centimetres long. Transparent in all stages, a diamondback squid swims slowly, propelled by undulations of its triangular fins. Chromatophores (organs just below the skin) contain elastic sacs of pigment that stretch rapidly into discs of colour when the muscles around them contract. Camera details: Nikon D850 with 60mm f/2.8 lens, 1/200sec at f/20 and ISO 500, Seacam housing, Seaflash 150D strobes, Scubalamp lights
Winner, ten years and under Perfect balance by Andrés Luis Dominguez Blanco, Spain
In spring, the meadows near Andrés’ home in Ubrique, in Andalucia, Spain, are bright with flowers, such as these sweet-scented sulla vetches. Andrés had walked there a few days earlier and seen European stonechats hunting for insects, but they were on the far side of the meadow. He regularly sees and hears stonechats, their calls like two stones tapping together. Andrés asked his father to drive to the meadow and park so he could use the car as a hide, kneel on the back seat and, with his lens on the window sill, shoot through the open windows.
He was delighted to see stonechats flying close by, alighting on any stem or stalk as a vantage point to look for worms, spiders and insects. He watched this male closely. It often landed on branches or the top of small bushes, but this time it perched on a flower stem, which began to bend under its delicate weight. The stonechat kept perfect balance and Andrés framed his beautiful composition.
Camera details: Fujifilm X-H1, XF100–400mm f/4.5–5.6, 1/50sec at f/5.6 and ISO 800
Winner, Behaviour: Birds Great crested sunrise by Jose Luis Ruiz Jiménez, Spain
After several hours up to his chest in water in a lagoon near Brozas, in the west of Spain, Jose Luis captured this intimate moment of a great crested grebe family. His camera floated on a U-shaped platform beneath the small camouflaged tent that also hid his head. The grebes are at their most elegant in the breeding season. To avoid predators, their chicks leave the nest within a few hours of hatching, hitching a snug ride on a parent’s back. Here the hatchlings will live for the next two to three weeks, being fed as fast as their parents can manage. This morning,
the parent on breakfast duty emerged with damp feathers and a tasty meal, just when not a breath of wind rippled the water and the stripy-headed chick stretched out of its sanctuary, open‑beaked, to claim the fish. In soft light and muted reflections, Jose Luis was able to reveal the fine detail of these graceful birds and their attentive parental care. Camera details: Nikon D4S, 600mm f/4 lens with 1.4x teleconverter, 1/800sec at f/6.3 and ISO 500, floating hide
Winner, Behaviour: Mammals When mother says run by Shanyuan Li, China
This rare picture of a family of Pallas’s cats, or manuls, on the remote steppes of the Qinghai– Tibet Plateau in north-west China is the result of six years’ work at high altitude. These small cats are normally solitary, hard to find and mostly active at dawn and dusk. Through long-term observation, Shanyuan knew his best chance to photograph them in daylight would be in August and September, when the kittens were a few months old and the mothers bolder and intent on caring for them. He tracked the family as they descended to about 3800 metres (12,500 feet) in search of their favourite food – pikas (small, rabbit‑like mammals) – and set up his hide on
the hill opposite their lair. Hours of patience were rewarded when the three kittens came out to play, while their mother kept her eye on a Tibetan fox lurking nearby. Shanyuan caught their expressions in a rarely seen moment of family life. Their real threat, though, is not foxes, but the degradation and fragmentation of their steppe grassland caused by overgrazing, arable conversion, mining and general human disturbance, alongside poisoning of their prey and hunting for their fur and as pets. Camera details: Canon EOS-1D X Mark II, 800mm f/5.6 lens; 1/1250sec at f/11 and ISO 640, Sirui tripod
24 Photography News | Issue 83
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