Photo Contest: Our Staff’s Turn

The Nature Conservancy is made up of dedicated people who every day are helping the organization achieve its mission.

Some of them work outside for a living. Others spend their weekends enjoying the natural world they work to protect. Many of them bring a camera along to capture some inspiration from the great outdoors.

Every August, we celebrate the power of photography through The Nature Conservancy’s annual Global Photo Contest.

Since our staff aren’t allowed to win prizes in that contest, we held a little photo contest of our own. Here are a few of the images that stood out from TNC staff:

Toby Hayman

Hayman’s son leaps into the seemingly unknown from a diving board at Robert Treman State Park in Ithaca, New York. This photo, encapsulating the idea of “the decisive moment,” took the grand prize.

Joseph Wraithwall

A raven swoops by sandstone near Delicate Arch in Utah’s Arches National Park. Wraithwall’s image took the people’s choice award in our staff contest.

Jacqueline Ferrato

Maximilian sunflowers are clustered at Clymer Meadow Preserve, one of TNC’s properties in Texas where Ferrato works as a field biologist. Her camera is never far when she's in the field working on avian conservation or even ocelot telemetry, and her photos convey a strong sense of place.

Michael Fuhr

An American alligator on the hunt seems to come out of nowhere in South Carolina’s lowcountry. In Fuhr’s photo, the water acts as a white canvas, giving the image a peaceful quality.

Daniel White

A hiker stops to admire the viewpoint at Little Stony Man in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. White waited until the lighting was perfect off of the rocky crag.

Lauren Ludi

The baby gorilla’s eyes draw the viewer into this photo from Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Ludi uses a shallow depth of field to blur the foreground leaves and keep the focus on those eyes.

Ethan Kearns

A man admires the snowcapped peaks and vast landscape near Mt. Sunday in New Zealand, where Kearns was completing a fellowship. It was Kearns’ first night shoot.