Wildlife Photographer of the Year - Photojournalism story
Audio description
Transcript
This is ‘Among the Trees’ by Thomas Peschak from Germany and South Africa. This photograph was taken in the Rio Negro, Brazil. It is the lead image in a series of six images in which Thomas documents the relationship between endangered Amazon River dolphins, also known as botos, or pink river dolphins, and the people with whom they share their watery home. It's the 2024 category winner of the ‘Photojournalist Story Award’. In front of us is a dark set image that tells you you are in the middle of a dense rainforest. One half of the image is entirely trees with a colour palette of greens and browns, and all sorts of wonderful colours. But then what draws your eyes towards the centre is this image of a dolphin, a river dolphin just gliding gracefully through the murky water, looking completely calm in its natural habitat. It is almost like it is scanning for something to eat or just scanning to see what direction to go. It is completely by itself and there are no other animals around it. Half the image is green trees with dense forests, and the other half is water. It is just such an unusual place to be seeing a dolphin at the bottom of a tree. There are hints of the dolphin’s very unusual colouration. These dolphins are pale pink because they live in a world of virtual darkness and these are dark waters. So, what is the point in having that colouration? You can't get a sense of scale from this image because those trees could be tiny, or they could be huge. Likewise with the dolphin. In terms of the image overall, the whole photograph looks warm because of the browns and the red glow in the water, and even the trees themselves have a hazy, warm glow about them.