Winners of the Wildlife Photographer 2013

These are the winners of the impressive Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 competition were just announced. There was more than 43,000 images from 96 countries and only eighteen were selected. Essence of Elephants.The overall grand prize went to photographer Greg du Toit from South Africa

“Ever since he first picked up a camera, Greg has photographed African elephants. ‘For many years,’ he says, ‘I’ve wanted to create an image that captures their special energy and the state of consciousness that I sense when I’m with them. This image comes closest to doing that.’ The shot was taken at a waterhole in Botswana’s Northern Tuli Game Reserve, from a hide (a sunken freight container) that provided a ground-level view. Greg chose to use a slow shutter speed to create the atmosphere he was after and try ‘to depict these gentle giants in an almost ghostly way.’ He used a wide-angle lens tilted up to emphasise the size of whatever elephant entered the foreground, and chose a narrow aperture to create a large depth of field so that any elephants in the background would also be in focus.”