2021 GDT Nature Photographer of the Year winners show us how gentle and harsh nature is

The German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) has just announced the results of its 2021 Nature Photographer of the Year contest. As always, there’s a fantastic selection of images showing nature in all its beauty and tenderness, but also reminding us how harsh and powerful it can be.

This year. almost 400 GDT members from 13 different countries submitted 6470 photos. The overall winner for 2021 is a photography duo from Germany. Turbo swallow shows a barn swallow in flight brought Karsten Mosebach and Bernhard Volmer first place. Karsten Mosebach said about the winning image:

“Barn swallows are fast flyers. They cut through the air at top speed, swerving around obstacles blazingly fast and unexpected. Our eyes can hardly follow their daredevil maneuvers. The birds seem to be in the air all the time. Only rarely do they rest with other swallows on a telephone wire or on the gutter of an old pigsty.”

The two photographers shot the winning image with a long exposure combined with flash to freeze the movement towards the end of the exposure time. Thus, the swallow in the picture looks like it wears a veil that shows both its speed and beauty.

Other than the overall winner, category winners are also awarded, and there’s also the jury’s prize. Mosebach and Volmer won the main award, but their photo was also the winner of the Bird category. Last year’s winner Peter Lindel won in the category Mammals with the photograph of a maned lion and its young. The winning photograph by Scott Portelli in the category Other Animals is named Mudskipper. Stefan Imig won the category Plants and Fungi with the photo Porcelain fungi. In the category Landscapes, Corinna Leonbacher came out on top with the image Volcano? showing a thunderstorm in the Dolomite Mountains. Sandra Bartocha and her image Golden wave won the Nature’s Studio category. The special category We are family was also won by Corinna Leonbacher with the photo Family breakfast – a pair of crested grebes with their young. Last but not least, the jury’s prize went to Alexandra Wünsch for her atmospheric photo of a blackbird in a light-flooded forest.

Take a look at the remaining category winners below, and I’ll share a few more photos that I personally liked a lot. It was a tough choice! You can find out more on GDT’s website.