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World of Wonders

Take a closer look at some of our favorite images from TNC's 2021 global photo contest.

Spring 2022

in a black & white image, a wildebeest leaps with many wildebeests in the background
Powerful Moments Photographers submitted breathtaking images to The Nature Conservancy’s 2021 photo contest. Here, Anup Shah captured wildebeests in Kenya.

In 2021, photographers from 158 countries submitted a total of 100,190 pictures to The Nature Conservancy’s global photo contest. Here are some of the winning images from around the world.

Second Place, People and Nature A guide in the Sahara Desert dunes of Erg Chebbi, Morocco, struggles against a sandstorm.
First Place, Water A farmer carries a weeding machine beneath an irrigation pump in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh.
Third Place, People and Nature A diver swims among trash—including plastic bottles and medical masks—in the Bosporus Strait in Turkey.
Second Place, Water In the Ruta de los Cenotes near Puerto Morelos, Mexico, freedivers, scuba divers and swimmers enjoy a watering hole—one of thousands of cenotes on the Yucatán Peninsula.
First Place, Landscape A caiman carcass is seen during the dry season in the Brazilian portion of the Pantanal wetlands, the world’s largest tropical wetland area.


“I took this picture during a visit to the Pantanal wetlands just a few days after the region was struck by the worst wildfires in its recent history. I have been visiting that area frequently for many years, but had never faced such a sad scenario of destruction.” 

—Photographer Daniel de Granville Manço
 

 

Third Place, Landscape Seen from above, the San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds change colors and patterns because of the microorganisms and high salinity within them.
People’s Choice Award Fireflies congregate just before monsoon season begins in India. They gather on a single tree in an image made by stacking 32 photos taken over 16 minutes.


“I decided to venture out every night [to find the fireflies]. Luckily, one night I could see many places where there were a lot of fireflies, but still I could not find that one tree where I could isolate the fireflies from the rest of the frame. After about three hours, I saw this tree and immediately knew this was it.” 

—Photographer Prathamesh Ghadekar
 

 

Third Place, Wildlife A pike catches a large perch in a flooded granite quarry called Leštinka in the Czech Republic.
Second Place, Landscape The Serra do Mar, or ”mountain range of the sea,” in southeastern Brazil, rises above the clouds.
Honorable Mention, People and Nature A man sitting alone on a staircase is contrasted with the intensity of a nearby building in Hong Kong (above). The photo shows that in Hong Kong, “space is precious.”
First Place, People and Nature A team of workers from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme prepare Brenda, a 3-month-old orangutan, for surgery to repair her humerus. Brenda was confiscated from a home where she was being kept as a pet.


“When I saw the number of people around the operation table, I decided immediately to get on a chair. The ceiling was not very high so I could hold on to the ceiling to be stable to shoot the picture.” 

—Photographer Alain Schroeder



First Place, Wildlife Amid incessant and unseasonal rains, a coalition of male cheetahs—known as Tano Bora, or the “The Magnificent Five”—cross the flooded Talek River in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. Remarkably, all five (four visible here) survived the crossing.
Second Place, Wildlife In Poland, a field of sunflowers attracts birds looking for seeds.
Honorable Mention, Wildlife A herd of wildebeests is photographed using a remote camera in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.

Want to learn more?

See more winning images and get updates on future Nature Conservancy photo contests: nature.org/photography.