The winning shot, Bubble-net, was captured by Western Australian photographer and tour operator Scott Portelli as part of a sailing expedition to Antarctica last year.
Bubble-net feeding is a cooperative hunting strategy used by humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). As the whales surround a school of small fish, they make a team effort to disorient and corral the fish into a ‘net’ of bubbles. One whale will sound a call, at which point they’ll all swim up, with opened mouths, to feed on the trapped fish.
Portelli was on a small 60-foot yacht when he took the winning image. “There was one day where the weather was shifting between overcast and snowing. I sat and watched these whales bubble-netting for about six hours, but trying to capture that moment when they break the surface came down to persistence and timing.”
It’s widely believed that the whales developed this feeding method after they were hunted to near extinction, allowing as many of them as possible to feed in a short time.
As the overall winner, Portelli receives a cash prize of $10,000 and a holiday prize generously provided by Coral Expeditions. This is second time lucky for Portelli, who also won the competition in 2021 with an image of the elusive leafy sea dragon taken at South Australia’s Second Valley.
Portelli heads up a high-calibre field of 10 category winners unveiled by South Australian Museum Chief Executive Dr David Gaimster last night in an online ceremony, before the annual exhibition of all 91 finalists opened to the public on Saturday 31 August.
Now in its 21st year, the competition – which is owned and produced by the South Australian Museum – drew 1856 entries from 442 photographers across 12 countries in its search for the best wildlife and landscape photographs taken across the Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and New Guinea bioregions.
Among the other winners, South Australia’s David Dahlenburg won the Portfolio category, in which photographers enter a group of six images with a shared theme.
His photo series, Grotesque Beauty, depicts tailings dams used to store byproducts of mining operations, located from South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula to the Far North. Dahlenburg works at a Barossa wine company by day but captured the images while flying for fun in a light aeroplane.
“Tailings dams have a sinister beauty—the colours are extraordinary,” Dahlenburg said. “They often contain waste materials, such as toxic chemicals and heavy metals, which can harm birdlife and groundwater. It’s estimated that there are about 18,000 tailings dams around the world.”
Of the imagery, this year’s judges, Chrissie Goldrick, Petra Leary and Andrew Meares, said: “This series of photographs addresses human impact on the environment, depicting a terrible beauty that is the often-unseen reality of mining.”
The other categories in the competition are Animals in Nature, Aerial, Macro, Landscape, Threatened Species, Monochrome, Our Impact, and Astrophotography. There is also a People’s Choice prize, voted by visitors to the exhibition, and a Junior category for budding photographers aged under 18.
Adelaide’s Maya Hughes, 14, won the Junior category for her picture of a pelican’s delicate head and neck feathers at South Australia’s Encounter Bay. “If I can inspire an appreciation and love of the natural world, conservation will follow,” Hughes said.
South Australian Museum CEO Dr David Gaimster congratulated this year’s winners. “The world around us has always been a natural subject for photographers. But the advent of photography has also coincided with nearly two centuries of unprecedented biodiversity loss.
“This makes the work of nature photographers all the more urgent and inspiring, and once again, the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition and exhibition has brought together another stunning group of finalists, capturing nature at every scale and in every corner of our unique bioregion.”
Australian Geographic Group Picture Editor Nicky Catley said: “We hope these photographs ignite your curiosity and wonder as they did for us, offering artful windows into non-human worlds. They remind us we must respect and care for nature, with an understanding that humans are not at the centre of existence, nor separate to other communities of life.”
All winners and finalists will feature in the 2024 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year book, available at the South Australian Museum shop, online through Australian Geographic and at all leading bookstores through Hardie Grant Publishing.
2024 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year Exhibition
until Sunday, 3rd of November 2024
South Australian Museum, Adelaide
