In addition to the three winning photos from the 2019 BirdWatching Photography Awards, we’re thrilled to present this gallery of 22 finalists:
Photographer: Charles Sleicher
Location and date: South Georgia Island, January 1995.
Description: The photograph was taken on a glacier on South Georgia Island in January 1995. There was a large colony of King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) on the glacier. As I walked near them, I noticed a pair of penguins that had wandered away from the colony. Knowing that they were a courting pair, I followed them for an hour or so at a discrete distance to get this endearing image.
Gear and settings: Photo taken on Fujichrome Velvia 50 film with a Nikon F4 camera and a 300mm f4 lens at f5.6 at 1/125 second. The camera was on a tripod. The film was scanned and digitized by a professional photographic lab.
Thanks to our judges: Matt Mendenhall, editor of BirdWatching; Wes Pitts, editor of Outdoor Photographer; Marie Read, an award-winning nature photographer based near Ithaca, New York; and Brian E. Small, a professional nature photographer based in Los Angeles whose photos illustrate our “ID Tips” column.
