After breaking the record with 60,466 votes, it's official: the magnificent photograph of a snow leopard at sunset in the Himalayas has been voted the winner of the People's Choice award for Best Wildlife Photo of the Year. Its author, the German photographer Sascha Fonseca, managed to capture the moment through a camera trap, thus obtaining the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
In the image, titled 'The world of the snow leopard', we can observe in great detail the animal photographed in front of the mountains of Ladakh, in northern India, in a remote area of the Himalayas.
The Natural History Museum made a selection of 25 images from almost 39,000 photographs submitted to the fifty-eighth competition. However, Fonseca's has conquered the public for its uniqueness, crowning itself the winner. Those who love photography will be able to visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Museum of Natural History until it closes on July 2, 2023.
The value of the photograph lies in its complexity, as Sascha managed to take it as part of a three-year project high in the Indian Himalayas. In addition, it shows us a species known as "the ghost of the mountains" for its difficulty to be photographed. The snow leopard stands out for its camouflage and stealth.
Sascha Fonseca states: “I am incredibly proud to be this year's People's Choice Award winner and I thank all the fans around the world for making this happen. Photography can connect people with wildlife and encourage them to appreciate the beauty of the unseen natural world. I believe that a greater understanding of wildlife leads to a deeper care that hopefully results in active support and increased public interest in conservation."
Among the four finalists, we find spectacular nature photographs such as 'Holding on' by Igor Altuna, which shows a leopard carrying a dead monkey and its baby, and 'Fox affection' by Brittany Crossman, which shows us how to several red foxes greeting each other.
In the case of 'Among the flowers' by Martin Gregus, the photograph shows a polar bear cub playing in Hudson Bay (Canada) and 'Portrait of Olobor' by Marina Cano is an incredible image of a male lion in the Masai Mara (Kenya).
