The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History opened “Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards Presents: The Best of the Best” Saturday, Oct. 24. The temporary exhibition features more than 100 large-format prints selected from nearly 500,000 images submitted over 20 years by photographers from around the globe for the annual Nature’s Best Photography: Windland Smith Rice International Awards. Photos in the exhibition include dramatic landscapes, exciting wildlife and surprising glimpses of Earth’s icy peaks to mysterious ocean depths. The exhibition will remain on display through October 2016.
African Bush Elephant, Amboseli National Park, Kenya
By Stuart Porter, Nelspruit, South Africa
www.wild4photographicsafaris.com
“We encountered a blanket of haze and through this misty curtain we could make out two bulls feeding. I focused on one that had the rising sunlight behind him. A pair of cattle egrets perched on him as he fed. Without warning, the elephant began to lie down, startling the birds and causing one to take flight. It was thrilling to witness such an event.”
© Stuart Porter / Nature's Best Photography Awards. Courtesy of Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO EDITORS: This photo can only be used in all media if in conjunction with the promotion of the exhibition and the appropriate credit information is used in its entirety for the corresponding image. Higher resolution .tiff files can be accessed via the following Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/x1cachtm1ntuxz8/AACW_nQxzfnJMF75qcAREr0Ua?dl=0