Photography Competitions


A friend of mine once said: "Photography competitions are about as useful as competitions in yoga". If you consider wildlife and nature photography as a form of art, his statement becomes understandable.

Nevertheless, I sometimes take part in photographic competitions because they allow me to look at my pictures in a different way, detached from the emotions that are sometimes associated with them. What I would never do, however, is think about a competition while I'm creating the images. In my opinion, this destroys both the experience in the field and the creative process.

In the following I exhibit some of my successful images of the last years.

My most successful image - Pandemonium

Pandemonium made the Top100 in the September category MONOCHROME.

Pandemonium won the Tyrolean State Prize for Professional Photography in the category "Wildlife".

I was nominated as a member of the National Team of Austria in the 11th edition of this competition.

My image Gooooood Morning made the Top100 in the March category SILHOUETTES of the WildArt Photographer of the Year.
Mornings in Amboseli National Park i Southern Kenya are sometimes magical: Countless hooves of the animals moving from the foothills of Mount Kilimandjaro to the lush marshes of Amboseli kick up dust and the rising sun turns shadows and dust into a colourful scenery full of animal silhouettes.

My image On the Rocks made the Top100 in the July category MONOCHROME of the WildArt Photographer of the Year.The kopjes of Serengeti are a typical feature of this fascinating landscape. Scanning some of the major kopjes I came across a small pride of lions, most of them hiding or sleeping in the shady areas between the granite boulders. But one lioness was just resting on an exposed rock. She blended perfectly with the granite. Her relaxed behaviour allowed enough time to create the composition of this image. Clouds of an approaching thunderstorm added additional drama to the scene.

My image Thirst made the Top100 in the January category WET of the WildArt Photographer of the Year.
At the height of the dry season water becomes a very limited resource in most parts of southern Africa. Many animals are attracted to the last remaining  water sources. My intention was to create an image that is different from the usual “waterhole” shots. I took this image from an underground hide at water level to capture an intimate portrait of a drinking impala.