The Nature inFocus Photography Awards 2024 winners showcase some of the best and most impactful nature images in the world, with a particular emphasis on wildlife and conservation.
Warning: Readers may find some of the photographs featured in this article upsetting due to depictions of animal death.
Supun Dilshan won this year’s title of “Photographer of the Year” for a powerful portfolio showcasing the struggles of Sri Lankan elephants.
Human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka is a significant issue, posing a grave threat to both elephants and people. Sri Lanka has the highest number of annual elephant deaths of any country and the highest number of people killed by elephants. In 2022 and 2023, over 800 elephants died because of human conflict in Sri Lanka. While data on human deaths is not available for these years, in 2019, 121 Sri Lankans were killed in human-elephant conflict.
“It’s heartbreaking to see development at loggerheads with the places these wild animals call home. Their habitat is already shrinking at an alarming rate due to multiple anthropogenic factors. But with the rise of linear infrastructure, especially in regions like India and Sri Lanka, we’re only going to see more of these come up. This is one of the greatest threats to wildlife today,” says the President of Wildlife Conservation Trust, Anish Andheria.
Andheria was one of six judges, alongside wildlife photographers Dhritiman Mukherjee and Shivang Mehta, wildlife biologist Nandini Velho, filmmaker Malaika Vaz, and Nature inFocus co-founder, Kalyan Varma.
The six-member panel evaluated a record-breaking 14,180 entries submitted by photographers from 42 countries.
Category Winners
Alongside Dilshan’s portfolio victory, the competition also selected winning images across numerous categories, including Animal Behavior, Wildscape and Animals in Their Habitat, Creative Nature Photography, Animal Portraits, the Ramki Sreenivasan Conservation Photography Award (which Dilshan also won), and a special category for young photographers. All category winners and runners-up are featured below.
Animal Behavior
Wildscape and Animals in Their Habitat
Creative Nature Photography
Animal Portraits
Ramki Sreenivasan Conservation Photography Award
Young Photographer
Alongside the featured winners, the Nature in Focus competition also honors additional images with “Special Mentions.” These photographs can be viewed on the Nature inFocus Awards 2024 website.
Image credits: Photographs provided courtesy of the Nature inFocus Awards. Individual photographers are credited in the image captions.
