The prestigious Nature inFocus photography competition 2025 has unveiled its remarkable winners during a special ceremony at the Nature inFocus festival, held at the historic Jayamahal Palace in Bengaluru, India.
A Global Showcase of Talent
This year's competition demonstrated its international appeal, attracting an impressive 16,000 image submissions from more than 1,250 photographers representing over 38 countries worldwide. The sheer volume and quality of entries made the judging process particularly challenging for the selection committee.
Category Winners and Their Stories
In the Young Photographer category, Tinnapat Netcharussaeng triumphed with 'Nautilus on the move', captured during a nighttime blackwater dive in Anilao, Philippines. The image shows a female Paper Nautilus using a drifting leaf as temporary refuge in the open sea.
Sergey Bystritsky claimed victory in the Wildscape & Animals in Their Habitat category with 'Thief in the spotlight'. The photographer employed an innovative technique using soft lights, flashes, and fabric to guide a fox into view among unusually shaped trees in Georgia's Vashlovani National Park.
The Conservation category winner, 'Edge of two worlds' by Rajat Chordia and Vidhan Dwivedi, presents a powerful statement about human-wildlife conflict. The image shows a young leopard feeding on a cow carcass beside rubbish and fast-moving traffic in Udaipur, India.
Amit Eshel's 'Ancient rivals' won the Animal Behaviour category, capturing an Arctic wolf showing signs of a recent hunt while a muskox herd forms a defensive circle to protect their calves on Ellesmere Island, Canada.
In the Creative Nature category, Bidyut Kalita's 'Blue Aura' from Goalpara, India, showcases technical excellence. The photographer used a steady mobile light to trace motion and a speedlight from another angle to freeze a cranefly's body, creating an image where the insect appears sharp while its delicate legs glow in a soft blue aura.
Federica Cordero's 'The canopy watcher' triumphed in the Animal Portraits category, featuring a young male chimpanzee lounging effortlessly on a twisted vine in the forests of Uganda.
The Coexistence category winner, Sarthak Agrawal's 'Urban Oasis', presents a striking contrast between nature and urban development. The image shows flamingos feeding peacefully at Ras Al Khor wildlife sanctuary in Dubai, with the city's towering skyline visible in the background. This urban wetland hosts over 25,000 migratory birds each winter and continues to thrive despite rapid urban expansion.
Special Mentions and Runner-Ups
The competition also recognised several outstanding entries with special mentions and runner-up awards. Suliman Alatiqi received special mention in Wildscape & Animals in their Habitat for 'Cooling on the Coast', showing a Komodo dragon resting in shallow coastal water in Komodo, Indonesia.
Raghuvamsh Chavali was named runner-up in Creative Nature for 'Patterns in the Sky', capturing a flock of birds forming delicate patterns beside a towering city building in Canada.
Pratik Pradhan earned runner-up status in Wildscape & Animals in their Habitat for 'Green Within Green', featuring a Malabar gliding frog perfectly camouflaged on a yam-footed plant in Amboli, India.
Tinnapat Netcharussaeng received another special mention in Young Photographer for 'Crevice Companions', showing Caribbean spiny lobsters and whitetip reef sharks sharing the same rocky crevice at Socorro Island, Mexico.
Rohan Neel Shah's 'A Tale of Two Trunks' received special mention, capturing two elephants intertwining trunks in a gentle moment of play in Kenya's Maasai Mara.
Kashyap Naresh Raval was named runner-up in Animal Behaviour for 'Catch of the day', showing a fishing spider holding its freshly caught fish at the edge of a waterbody in Kollur, India.
Celebrating Nature's Diversity
The Nature inFocus photography competition 2025 has once again demonstrated the power of photography to capture the beauty, complexity, and fragility of our natural world. From urban wetlands to remote Arctic landscapes, these winning images tell compelling stories about wildlife conservation, animal behaviour, and the delicate balance between nature and human development.
