Nature Photography Contest 2025
- Mark Fernley
- Jan 8
- 5 min read
Exposure One Awards - Nature Photography Contest 2025
The Nature Photography Contest 2025
The Exposure One Awards have become a respected platform within the global photography community, showcasing powerful visual storytelling across nature, wildlife, and aerial photography. Each year, the competition attracts thousands of submissions from photographers around the world, ranging from emerging talent to established professionals. Images are judged by an international panel on technical excellence, creativity, and the ability to communicate a compelling story about the natural world.
To be recognised by the Exposure One Awards is not only a personal achievement, but also a meaningful acknowledgment of the time, patience, and respect required to photograph wildlife ethically and honestly. The awards celebrate images that go beyond aesthetics, highlighting moments that reflect both the beauty and fragility of the natural world.
In the 2025 Nature Photography Contest, I was honoured to be awarded second place, a result that I am deeply grateful for among such a strong and competitive field.
The Image: Crowned in Dust and Shadow
The awarded image, Crowned in Dust and Shadow, photographed by me, Mark A. Fernley that landed me a 2nd place Winning the Nature Photography Contest 2025, was taken at night from Shompole Hide in the Shompole Conservancy, Kenya. The photograph captures a lioness emerging through drifting dust, illuminated softly against the darkness, her reflection faintly visible in the water below. It is a quiet, atmospheric moment rather than an action-driven scene, one that reflects the stillness and tension that often define nocturnal wildlife encounters.
Shompole Hide allows photographers to work at ground level, offering a rare and intimate perspective of wildlife as they move naturally through the landscape. This image was the result of patience and restraint, waiting for the light, position, and movement to align without influencing the animal’s behaviour.
For me, the photograph represents the kind of wildlife photography I value most: immersive, respectful, and grounded in genuine field experience. To have this image recognised by the Exposure One Awards is both humbling and motivating, reinforcing the importance of ethical photography and the power of subtle storytelling in nature imagery.
The Story Behind The Shot!
This photograph was taken deep into the night at Shompole Conservancy while leading a wildlife photo trip with my company Untamed Photo Safaris. The shot was taken around three in the morning, from a photographic safari hide known as Shompole Plains Hide that had become almost a second home to me. By this point, I had been photographing from the hide for nearly two months, learning the rhythms of the waterhole and the subtle signals that tell you when something important is about to happen. On this particular night, the hide was alive with activity. Elephants arrived in slow, deliberate groups, their reflections trembling on the water’s surface. Giraffe stepped in cautiously, legs splayed, while impala and zebra came and went in nervous bursts. A serval ghosted through the edges of the light, and hyenas lingered just beyond it, ever patient.
Eventually, as it so often does, the waterhole fell quiet. The silence was not empty, but expectant. Then the baboons began calling from the darkness. That sound is never random. It is an alarm, and I knew immediately that predators were close. Not long after, the lions emerged, shapes forming out of shadow, their presence felt before it was fully seen. I photographed them as they drank, their faces lit low and clean, eyes reflecting a calm confidence that only lions carry at night.
While the lions were at the water, the hyenas lurked in the distance, testing boundaries. One young male lion, full of energy and bravado, began racing back and forth in front of the hide. Each charge sent dust billowing up from the dry ground, momentarily catching the light before dissolving back into the dark. In that instant, instinct took over. I turned up the backlight, knowing exactly what it would do. The dust ignited in the beam, wrapping the lion in a glowing haze that transformed the scene into something almost unreal.
The image captures the lion in profile, powerful and alert, standing in a cloud of illuminated dust that looks more like smoke than earth. The ground beneath him is dark and solid, while the air around him feels alive, swirling with motion and tension. His reflection lingers faintly in the water below, a soft echo of his presence, grounding the image back in reality. The contrast between the sharpness of the lion and the softness of the dust gives the photograph its drama, turning a fleeting moment into something sculptural and timeless.
Technically, the image was taken on a Canon R5 paired with an EF 70–200mm f/2.8. The camera was kept still due to the slow shutter speed of 1/160, Fstop at 2.8 and ISO at 5000. I used first curtain shutter to prevent any flicker from the backlight, which was critical in maintaining the clean, consistent illumination of the dust. The hide itself is open, placing you incredibly close to the animals and below their eye level. That proximity is exhilarating and unnerving in equal measure. Sitting there in the darkness, with lions just meters away, heart racing, you are reminded that this is their world. When everything aligns, preparation, patience, instinct, and respect for the moment, you do not just take a photograph. You witness something raw, fleeting, and unforgettable.
Why is The Image So Dramatic?
That sense of drama came naturally from time spent in the field rather than from any conscious decision to create a “style.” When you spend long periods with wildlife, especially at night and from hides, you start to see how light, space, and timing shape a moment far more than the subject alone. Predators emerging from darkness, dust hanging in the air, reflections on still water, or an animal stepping briefly into a pool of light all carry their own tension and scale.
Working from photographic hides has been a huge influence. Being below eye level and very close to animals changes everything. You are no longer photographing wildlife from a distance; you are immersed in their world. That proximity heightens the drama on its own, and my role becomes one of restraint, waiting for the scene to build rather than forcing it.
Lighting is used in the same way. I am not trying to overpower the scene, but to reveal what is already there, shape, texture, movement, and atmosphere. Often the most dramatic moments come after things go quiet, when the obvious action has passed and the environment starts to breathe again.
Over time, this way of working has become instinctive. I focus less on documenting what I see and more on translating how it feels to be there. If the image carries drama, it is because the moment itself was dramatic, and I was patient enough to let it unfold.
Join Me in This Photographic Hide in 2027 and Learn from a winner!
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