Congratulations also to all the winners for placing in such a strong competition of high quality images. Thank you to the international jury. Thank you to all the participants who submitted images to the competition. Thank you for loving nature. Thank you also to all our partners, led by our general partner Olympus CZ & SK.
Our only regret is that we could not meet you in person at the ceremony. But don't despair, we will see you at the Czech Photo Centre on Wednesday 24th June at the Audience Award ceremony.
In the shade - Puma photographed on the east side of a hill just before sunset in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile.
In the shade - Puma photographed on the eastern side of a hill, just before sunset in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile.
2nd place: Martin PelánekFirst steps - Foals born in the dry season have a very difficult first step. They have to follow their parents and rely on their still very weak legs to carry them on long journeys in search of food. African Bush Elephant - Loxodonta africana 3rd place: Zuzana and Matej Dolinay
On their morning walk - In the morning, kata lemurs jump down from the trees where they spent the night and go in search of food. In the dry, thorny forest of southern Madagascar, full of octopus trees, they don't have it easy. Their long tails are often erect and visible from a great distance.
1st place: Ondřej Pelánek
Lizard on a trip - The oriental pied hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) is primarily a fruit-eater, but despite this it evidently can’t be considered a vegetarian (note the tasty-looking calotes).
2nd place: Patrik Rolín
Peekaboo - This photograph was taken in a valley where no sun rays fell. I regularly walked around this hollow, and one morning, this bird peeked out. That day I knew exactly what I would be doing in the evening. It peeped out again for a few seconds and flew out through the chimney.
3rd place: Iva Dufková
Duck Lake - I like to go to the pond where a lot of ducks live to take pictures, relax and even swim. They always offer me so many beautiful views.
1st place: Jiří Herout
Diamond Python (Morelia spilota mcdowelli) - Today the carpet python makes its home throughout Australia. It has seven sub-species. I photographed this python on a journey to the Iron Range in northern Australia. Its species is M. s. mcdowelli.
2nd place: Barbora Polívková
In the heart of nature - Spiny glass frog – a frog hidden in a plant leaf.
3rd place: Vít Lukáš
In the treetops - The Aesculapian snake (Leptophis ahaetulla) lives mainly on frogs and their eggs, but also on lizards, small birds, insects, etc.
1st place: Vít Lukáš
An orb weaver on the hunt - A female Argiope submaronica orb-weaving spider on the hunt. Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica
2nd place: Vít Lukáš
The night grasshopper - A night camp of gorilla trackers in the Dzanga-Sangha protected area, Central African Republic. In the foreground: one night visitor.
3rd place: Jan Stria
Hide and seek - The dragonfly played hide and seek with me among the leaves of the banana tree in Costa Rica.
1st place: Jan Stria
Spring’s harbinger - The greater pasque flower is a clear symbol that spring is here. The low morning temperatures can often conjure up wonderful dew.
2nd place: Michaela Vinterová
Impermeable - This photo was taken in the Lužické Hory protected landscape area in the Czech Republic in January, 2019. It is the only submitted photo of mine that was taken without prior planning. I was out walking and this view caught my eye, especially with its contrast between snow-covered trees and beech leaves. The photo was taken with a 35mm lens and without a tripod. It was then cropped to a 16:9 format.
3rd place: Jan Stria
A forest lamp - In the autumn, the forest is beautiful even after sunset.
1st place: Jiří Benda
Frozen waterfall - This frozen waterfall was hard to reach due to the glaze ice all around. The photo depicts a 180° angle so that it can show the whole cave with the waterfall.
2nd place: George Karbus
The perfect storm - Storms in the northern Atlantic are among the largest in the world. Here the giant waves and wind are beating the shores of western Ireland.
3rd place: Josef Mandinec
Milford Sound - Or: The Sounds of New Zealand
1st place: Martin Mecnarowski
Winter shapes (drone) - They look exotic. But they’re not. Only in winter does the Czech landscape show the shapes that melting ice forms.... if you can just rise above it. Phantom 4 Pro drone, Poděbrady Lake, Olomouc region, Czech Republic
2nd place: Lukáš Veselý
Morteratsch Valley - This photo shows the Morteratsch glacial valley under the Alps’ easternmost 4 km mountain – Piz Bernina at the border between Switzerland and Italy in the Engadin region. The glacier moves at a rocketing pace each year; in summer of 2019, it moved a further 20 meters. A glacial stream with its typical bluish color from clay particles in the glacier’s base is flowing in the lower portion of the photo. Taken from a drone in autumn of 2018 as a vertical panorama stitched from 4 shots along with exposure bracketing.
3rd place: Tomáš Neuwirth
Shoreline - Zlarin Island in Croatia. This photo was taken using a drone.
1st place: Roman Šimek
Spot-billed pelican - Prague Zoo
2nd place: Matyáš Slavík
Arctic wolf – Canis lupus arctos – “Winter is coming.” A photograph from the Brno zoo.
3rd place: Jan Molinský
Pelican - Bathing pelican, Prague Zoo
1st place: Lukáš Kovár
Red fox
2nd place: Petr Bambousek
Borneo’s rainforest at night - The rainforests of Borneo are brimming with life and an array of unique animals. The iconic orangutans and the proboscis monkey, for example, have become symbols of these forests’ diversity. For me, however, smaller creatures from the insect realm, many of which remain hidden to ordinary visitors, are a better symbol. So night strolls through the Borneo rainforest bring me many unique meetings. This series captures a fragment of an unbelievably varied group of Borneo insects in their natural positions without any kind of manipulation.
3rd place: Petr Bambousek
Northern gannet - Gannets live on cliffs in colonies counting thousands of birds. This is an inhospitable environment, and they must face strong gusts of wind and blasts of the waves. This miniseries captures one of their colonies in its beautiful environment on the Shetland Islands.
1st place: Viktor Vrbovský
Too large a catch - A northern pike at the moment of its assault on a European perch. For a long time, it wasn’t able to handle this fairly large catch. We don’t know how the whole matter turned out; after 80 minutes with no progress, I ran out of air, and I had to leave the story open-ended...
2nd place: Iva Dufková
Duck lake - I like to head out to one pond where a lot of ducks live to take pictures, relax, and bathe as well. They always have so many beautiful views to offer me.
3rd place: Lukáš Veselý
Swarming of the fireflies - A photograph showing fireflies in the Czech Republic’s Libický Luh national nature reserve at twilight at the end of June. My goal was to depict as many male fireflies in flight in the scene as I could, precisely so that I could emphasize their motion. I deliberately used the shortest possible exposure, because longer exposures would eliminate the dynamics of their motion. The reference landscape was photographed just before I started photographing the fireflies at a lower ISO, because in the heat, my camera produced too much noise, and the landscape would lack detail. Roughly 200 source photos (approx. 10 minutes) were than merged into the reference image. Neither the position nor the composition were changed while taking the pictures.
1st place: Miroslava Žůrková Ondrášová
Giggling acrobatics - This photo was taken in Prague on a quay near a railway bridge on one February Sunday, when two photographer girlfriends decided they’d spend a nice day together. Besides traditional photographic gear, we also lugged five kilograms of vegetables with us so that we could make the day nicer for Prague’s flying fauna too. We discovered that swans won’t turn anything down, pigeons love peas the most, and seagulls spit saucily but will perform perfect giggling acrobatics for a piece of dry bread.
2nd place: Richard Horák
A foggy December by Charles Bridge - Instead of the snow that every one of us would expect in winter and in December, on December 20th, 2019, there was a pea-soup fog in Prague...
3rd place: Dan Materna
Mouflon mating - The mating of mouflons living on the grounds of the Prague’s Thomayer Hospital. October–November 2019
1st place: Lucie Čižmářová
Wildlife trafficking is one of the most profitable businesses after drug and weapons trafficking. Human hatred, apathy, and ignorance as well can lead many species to the edge of extinction. The sheer cuteness of the loris, and thus the heightened demand for them as pets, has become fateful for them. Czech conservationists have decided to fight the illegal loris trade and have founded The Kukang Rescue Program, a conservation program through which they direct a conservation and rehabilitation center on Sumatra and organize a number of educational activities.
2nd place: Jan Miklín
After the tragic extinction of the fish on Nesyt (a part of the Lednické rybníky nature reserve in the Czech Republic) in August 2018, the Administration of the Pálava Protected Landscape Area was aware of the risk of botulism – poisoning from the neurotoxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. If an epidemic were to break out, that could mean another massive dying off, this time for birds, including rare and endangered species. Because of this, the decision was made to capture waders, for which Nesyt is a migration stop, and transfer them eleven kilometers onwards, where they were released once again. Through this along with other measures the botulism risk was eliminated.
Red fox