by Nature photographers get to see the humorous side of Mother Nature when they’re in the field.
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, a free competition open to wildlife photographers of all levels, have narrowed down some of the funniest moments of 2022 and are sharing it with the public.
According to the contest’s press release, five thousand images were submitted from more than 85 countries.
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The “Overall Winner” of this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards is Jennifer Hadley, a wildlife photographer from Austin, Texas.
Jennifer Hadley’s photo “Not So Cat-Like Reflexes” won an award for overall winner at the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The photo shows a lion cub falling from a tree in Tanzania.
(Jennifer Hadley / Comedy Wildlife 2022)
His photo of a three-month-old lion cub falling out of a tree in Tanzania’s Serengeti ecosystem. The action shot was voted the overall winner and earned first place in the Creatures of the Earth category.
Hadley reportedly captioned the photo “Not So Cat-Like Reflexes” and wrote that the lion cub was likely making his first attempt at climbing a tree in his contest submission.
“I think part of what makes this contest great is that most of these photos probably happened by pure chance and that was certainly the case with the lion cub falling out of the tree,” Hadley told contest organizers. , in a statement.
“It was very late in the afternoon and so I opened the aperture as wide as possible to capture as much light as possible with the shutter lower than I would have liked, but I thought with the puppy walking up the tree I really wouldn’t have need the speed, he recalled.”It didn’t even occur to me that he was going to try to go down himself in the most uncatlike way.”
Hadley said the moment was shocking, but the lion cub quickly straightened up in mid-fall and landed on its fours, seemingly unharmed.
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“[He] he escaped with his siblings,” he said at the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. A happy ending for an unfortunate kitten who didn’t quite know how to climb down a tree.
As the overall winner of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, Hadley won a handmade trophy, camera bag and safari tour with Alex Walker’s Serian Camp in Masai Mara, Kenya.
Hadley also won an Affinity Photo 2 People’s Choice Award for her “Talk To The Fin!” image of her, where she photographed a gentoo penguin apparently waving to its mate on a beach in South America’s Falkland Islands.
“Talk to the fin!” by Jennifer Hadley The photo won an Affinity Photo 2 People’s Choice Award from the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The photo shows a gentoo penguin appearing to snub another penguin with its flipper raised in the Falkland Islands.
(Jennifer Hadley / Comedy Wildlife 2022)
Four other nature photographers took home major honors from the annual competition.
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Jean Jacques Alcalay of France won a Spectrum Photo Creatures of The Air Award for his image ‘Misleading African Viewpoints 2’, which shows a heron standing on the back of a swimming hippopotamus in Kruger National Park in South Africa. A second hippo is near the heron and its mouth is open in what appears to be a yawn.
Jean Jacques Alcalay’s photo ‘Misleading African Viewpoints 2’ won a Spectrum Photo Creatures of The Air Award from the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The photo shows a hippopotamus opening its mouth behind a heron in South Africa.
(Jean Jacques Alcalay/Comedy Wildlife 2022)
Span’s Arturo Telle Thiemann won a Creatures Under the Water Award for his ‘Say Cheeeeeeese’, where he photographed two gray triggerfish swimming towards him for extreme close-up in the North Atlantic waters around Faial Island, an island in the Azores region of Portugal.
Arturo Telle Thiemann’s photo of ‘Say Cheeeeeeese’ won a Creatures Under the Water Award from the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The photo shows a pair of triggerfish swimming up to a camera lens in Faial, Azores, Portugal.
(Arturo Telle Thiemann/Comedy Wildlife 2022)
“Even [though] they may look funny, these fish can be quite aggressive,” Thiemann wrote in his slideshow of the photo. “In this case they didn’t try to bite me, but the dome door of my camera case ended up with some scratches… life is hard…at least it wasn’t me who got hurt.”
Jia Chen, a wildlife photographer, won an Amazing Internet Portfolio Award for his four-part photo series “Football Dream,” which shows a Coopers Hawk in Ontario, Canada, diving and kicking a pine cone in a way reminiscent of a football match.
Jia Chen’s “Football Dream” photo series won an Amazing Internet Portfolio Award from the 2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The photo series features a Coopers Hawk kicking a pine cone in Ontario, Canada.
(Jia Chen / Comedy Wildlife 2022)
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Arshdeep Singh of India won a Junior Award for his “ICU Boy!” image, showing a spotted owl winking from what appears to be a pipe nest in Bikaner, India.
Singh told the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards that he captured the owl on the last day of his trip to Bikaner.
“ICU Boy!” by Arshdeep Singh the photo won a Junior Award from the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2022. The photo shows a spotted owl winking from a pipe nest in Bikaner, India.
(Arshdeep Singh / Comedy Wildlife 2022)
“It was really funny when he came out and looked straight at me, before he came in he closed one eye and felt like ‘I [see you] lad!’ and I immediately snapped a photo when he gave this pose,” Singh wrote in his contest submission.
Ten other wildlife photographers have earned Highly Commended honors from the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, including Michael Eastwell, Miroslave Srb, Federica Vinci, Jagdeep Rajput, Emmanuel Do Linh San, Ryan Sims, Alex Pansier, Mark Schoken, John Chaney and Martin Grace.
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The commended photographs were taken in the United States, Australia, Cambodia, India, South Africa, the Netherlands and East Falkland.
Notable images include a pair of bouncing wallabies, an accidental Pegasus, and a friendly raccoon that appeared to be waving at the camera.
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards were founded in 2015 by British professional photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, who both identify as “enthusiast conservationists,” according to the competition’s press release.
Joynson-Hicks and Sullam reportedly said the contest showcased humorous photographs of wildlife that provided “light-hearted relief and joy.”
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The competition is in partnership with the Whitley Fund for Nature, a UK-based wildlife charity, and has reportedly donated 10% of its net income to the conservation group.
