giant manta ray award winning photography

#Giant manta ray award winning photography plus

Tom’s job affords him the opportunity of seeing first-hand what is happening to the world, and the desire to do something about it is what motivates him to keep going, despite the personal risks to himself. Image credit: Tom Svensson Problems today And getting through to people is what my work is all about.’Īn orangutan mother and baby, photographed in Kalimanta, Borneo. But the risk of that strategy is that people shut down, so in the end when you’re presenting the solutions they have stopped listening. When I was new to photography I desperately wanted a strong reaction from people and the first lectures I did, people in the audience were crying. Which at that time was quite hard-hitting, and in hindsight rather too bloody, I think. I agreed to work with them on the condition that they put out the kind of work I was doing. I was their first to come from a conservation journalism background, rather than being a straight wildlife photographer.

Then Canon found my work about ten years ago and invited me to become an ambassador. ‘I first picked up a friend’s camera to record the work we were doing with the NGO on saving mammals,’ he recalls, ‘and from there on things progressed rapidly. Then went on to work for a conservation charity. Like many photographers of wildlife Tom originally studied as a zoologist. So inevitably he has an impressive portfolio of more-traditionally picturesque wildlife images that celebrate the wonders of the natural world.

#Giant manta ray award winning photography plus

On the plus side his job takes him to some of the most beautiful parts of the world and brings him into close proximity with the most incredible wildlife. He has had guns pointed at him, and there are places he can no longer go because he would probably be killed. He has been followed, threatened, chased and even kidnapped. Some of the stories that Tom shares of his brushes with criminal gangs, warlords and officials in despotic dictatorships are, frankly, terrifying. I work a lot with the illegal wildlife trade and follow the blood trail from the killing of the rhino in Africa, for example, all the way to Asia, where the market for most of it ends up.’

‘My main work is conservation, and photography is just my way of getting the information out there,’ admits the Dane, who lives in Sweden when he isn’t travelling. Few of his images end up as framed prints on anyone’s wall. He describes himself as a conservation photojournalist. Although he photographs wildlife for a living, and is internationally renowned for it. Tom Svensson does not consider himself a wildlife photographer. Tom’s background in wildlife conservation Leading conservation photographer Tom Svensson tells AP more… Tourism is our best hope for saving the natural world and its endangered wildlife.