‘The hunt from above’ by Dr Angela Albi with drone pilot August Paula, winner, the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2024
If the phrase ‘shark attack’ evokes memories of the Steven Spielberg thriller Jaws, this prizewinning image offers fresh insight into one of the world’s most renowned predators.
‘The hunt from above’ by Dr Angela Albi shows four blacktip reef sharks hunting a school of hardyhead silverside fish in the clear waters of the Maldives.
The photograph, pictured above, is overall winner of the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2024, run in association with the RPS. The drone image also topped the category Behaviour.
Dr Albi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, says: “Just after sunrise or before sundown, the shallow waters of the Maldives become a clear, see-through surface. These are the moments when we best observe the interactions between reef sharks and their prey.
“In this frame, captured during a research trip in 2024, a shark on the far left shifts suddenly from swimming calmly within the school to initiating a hunt, its body posture standing out from the others. While we still don’t know what triggers these attacks, we analyse videos to study how sharks hunt and how their prey respond collectively.”
Hugh Turvey ASIS HonFRPS, chair of the RPS Science Committee, adds: “From the photographers’ bird’s-eye perspective, the raw instincts of nature come alive as the school of fish move in almost perfect synchrony then split to avoid the sharks. The contrast between the collective movements of the fish and the sharks’ calculated group pursuit perfectly demonstrates the delicate balance between predator and prey.”
Below, we share the winning images across the competition’s remaining four categories – Astronomy, Earth science and climatology, Ecology and environmental science, and Microimaging.
‘Heart and Soul’ by Imran Sultan, winner, Astronomy category, Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2024
“Found more than 7,000 light years away, the Heart and Soul are two breathtaking nebulae in the Cassiopeia constellation. The nebulae are immense regions of star formation in our galaxy. My picture shows an area of the sky that is nine full moons across.
“To capture their intricate details, I photographed the faint nebulae for nearly 14 hours over three nights in autumn 2023 from the city skies of the Chicago suburbs. Ionised gas in the Heart and Soul glows in vivid colours – shown here in the HOO colour palette – where hydrogen is mapped in red, and oxygen appears as blues and greens.
“I was able to overcome the extreme light pollution of city skies – a growing challenge detrimental to stargazing and astrophotography – by using a special filter that only allows certain wavelengths of light to pass through.
“All photos were tracked using a star tracker to allow for long-exposure photos. The raw photo had to go through some edits in Adobe Photoshop to show the details and colours of the Milky Way.”
‘Ice cap melt lake in Greenland’ by David Garcia, winner, Earth science and climatology category, Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2024
“The photo depicts a supraglacial melting lake over the Greenlandic ice sheet, ranging from some meters to several kilometres wide. Increasing in numbers due to climate change, they can suddenly drain if a crack in the ice appears ... lubricating the glacier and speeding its flow towards the ocean.
“Greenland’s ice sheet is the second largest ice mass on our planet and its melting would raise the sea level by approximately 7m.
“Taken during a flight from Kangerlussuaq to Ilulissat, when a small window of light appeared, it was singular due to hundreds of small aquamarine structures formed by the melting and thawing process. Although some clouds cast shadows over the lake, I was elated to have captured the image.”
‘Secretary bird gullet’ by Peter Hudson, winner, Ecology and environmental science category, Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2024
“Secretary birds are closely related to falcons, but have evolved a stork-like mode of life, where they stalk around the savannah and feed on locusts, lizards and amphibians by punching them on the ground.
“This bird has just caught a locust. As it swallows its prey, it synchronously closes its third eyelid, the nictitating membrane, across its eye to protect it from damage.”
‘Tired eyes’ by Jose Manuel Martinez Lopez, winner, Microimaging category, Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2024
“This image depicts the eyes of a bark scorpion (Centruroides exilicauda) from Baja California, Mexico, observed under fluorescence using a 10x/0.3 objective lens.
“The appearance of the scorpion’s eyes in the photo is not typical – after several hours of working with the specimen, the scorpion dried out, allowing me to capture the 110 images necessary for the focus stacking process.”
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