The results from our 2017 Habitats & Landscapes photo contest.

  • Winner: Ripan Biswas
    Guide to the Galaxy

    Theobald's ranid frog (Hylarana tytleri) is a frog which has a sweet chirping croak. Attracted by the sound of croaking, my search ended when I found this tiny frog on a water hyacinth in a knee-deep muddy swamp. During the monsoon the sky normally stays cloudy in my area, but for a few days in the season there are crystal clear skies because the rain washes up all of the suspended dust particles in the atmosphere. I was fortunate enough to find such a night. I approached very slowly, placing my camera on a tripod. I used an uncommon technique in this picture. I used a manual lens which has both an aperture and focusing ring. First I focused on the foreground (i.e. on the frog), pressed the shutter with a cable release and fired an off-camera flash with my other hand. Then I adjusted the focus ring to infinity. It is a 30 second exposure, with an aperture of f/8.0, shifted to f/4.0 at the end. I used a Nikon D750 with a Laowa 15mm f/4 lens to take this picture, along with a manual flash and a sturdy tripod. The photograph was taken in Coochbehar, West Bengal, India.

  • Runner-Up: Stefan Cruysberghs
    Sunrise in Altai

    This photo was taking during a very cold morning in Altai Tavan Bogd national park in Mongolia, near the border of Russia and China. We stayed overnight in a ger of some Tuvan nomads and I woke up very early to make some long exposure shots of the river, the snowy mountains and the drifting ice. There was also a herd of bactrian camels owned by the Tuvan nomads who live in this remote region. Sunrise started with some warm orange light but after 10 minutes the stunning golden light gave a beautiful contrast with the blue sky and the drifting ice on the water.

  • Runner-Up: Alessandro Gruzza
    Pink Eruption

    This photograph was taken at an altitude of 4,800 metres in the Chilean Andes. The land and sky can amaze with the variety and the colours in a location of pure wilderness. The air was chilly and incredibly clear. My lungs longed for more oxygen as I climbed the hills around Laguna Cotacotani. At dusk, the refracted sunlight cast pink hues on the landscape, dominated by the volcanic cone of Mount Parinacota (6,348 metres). The photograph was taken in Laguna Cotacotani, Lauca National Park, Chile. I used a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, a Canon 17-40mm f/4 lens at 20mm, and a 9-stop soft graduated ND filter. The exposure was 13 seconds at f/14, with an ISO of 1000.

Congratulations to the featured photographers and a big thank you to all who entered! Thank you also to the generous support of our contest sponsors: