Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Winner revealed with magnificent underwater photograph

1/15

A French biologist and underwater photographer has been named as this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the National History Museum.

Laurent Ballesta was selected as the winner of the competition following the submission of his “enigmatic image” Creation.

The magnificent shot captures camouflage groupers exiting their milky cloud of eggs and sperm in Fakarava, French Polynesia.

Over the past five years, Mr Ballesta and his team returned to the lagoon, diving day and night so they did not miss the annual spawning that only takes place around the full moon in July.

His image was selected from more than 50,000 entries from 95 countries and was named the winner at a virtual awards ceremony at the Natural History Museum in central London.

Writer and editor Rosamund “Roz” Kidman Cox, chairperson of the judging panel, said the photograph captures a magical moment.

“The image works on so many levels. It is surprising, energetic and intriguing, and has an otherworldly beauty,” she said.

“It also captures a magical moment, a truly explosive creation of life, leaving the tail-end of the exodus of eggs hanging for a moment like a symbolic question mark.”

This year marks the 57th exhibition with a record number of submissions portraying nature under pressure.

Breathtaking pictures show cheetahs swimming in a raging river in Kenya, a lynx making a comeback in Spain and a slick of dying herrings in the wake of a fishing boat in Norway.

Meanwhile, 10-year-old Vidyun R Hebbar was named Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021.

Dome home
Vidyun R Hebbar/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

His colourful image, Dome home, shows a tent spider as a tuk-tuk passes.

The two winners were chosen from 19 categories in total which aim to celebrate the natural world.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year
Robert Irwin/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Three new categories were introduced this year, including Oceans The Bigger Picture and Wetlands The Bigger Picture.

A total 100 images from the competition will be on display at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum.

Spinning the cradle won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Behaviour: Invertebrate Award
(Gil Wizen/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

It opens on October 15 before touring across the UK and internationally.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in