Nature’s Best Photography Asia is an awards program focusing on and showcasing nature photographs taken in Asia by amateur and professional photographers worldwide.
They aim to bring exposure to Asian landscapes and the photographers who photograph them.
© Xu Yong, Shanghai, China
There was no sunshine at the time I found a pair of egrets about 100 meters ahead of me on the balcony of a peasant household. The pair of egrets are staring at each other with deep affection. They often reveal intimate movements. When the egret expresses love, their head and neck cross to form two heart shaped characters which symbolizes the egrets love.
© Shin Okamoto, Tokyo, Japan
In Sri Lanka before the colonial period there were 40,000 Sri Lankan elephants. Due to overhunting during the colonial period that number has been drastically reduced down to about 5,000. However poaching still continues. The Sri Lankan elephant has a tragic history but on one evening last summer I has able to take this photo of a parent and child in a heard. When I saw this scene I thought, “humans should not disturb them anymore”. This was a lovely scene filled with peace and affection.
© Kuanliang Ding, Xi’an, China
After a heavy rain in the Qinling Mountains, two golden monkeys jumped from the canopy and shook hands on a branch, which is a friendly expression of monkey evolu-tion. Qinling golden monkeys are also known as Sichuan golden monkeys. Their body is full of blond hair, with a pale blue face and a thick mouth. The Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkeys inhabit the deep mountains of China’s Qinling Mountains and Shennongjia Mountains in Hubei Province. The social structure is polygamy. They live mainly in the trees. Their main food is tree buds, leaves, moss, and bark.
© Tatsuya Okuda, Tokyo, Japan
I have visited Son Tra Nature Reserve in Vietnam three times within six months since last September to spend time with red-shanked douc families because I’ve been enchanted by their expressive facial signals and peaceful behaviors. I’ve become familiar with this father and his young one because I’ve identified this young one by its right eye which became cloudy. I suppose that the baby has no sight in his right eye. Whenever I come across them, the father seems to protect his baby in a gentle manner and his young one always follows its beloved father. This time I saw them while they were eating their favorite leaves in the forest. Red-shanked douc is on the IUCN Red List as Endangered (EN). It can only be found in very limited areas in Southeast Asia. This natural habitat is highly critical for the continued existence of this endangered species and needs to be protected from potential resort development projects.
© Adwait Aphale, Kolhapur, India
Hanuman langurs are the best subjects to capture especially when accompanied by baby langurs.I always wanted to capture a mother and baby langur relationship in the wild. I have always been curious how they behave and I got the opportunity to take this image at Pench National Park while waiting for alarm calls. It is pretty difficult to capture them as they keep on moving and jumping every second. I have made several failed attempts to capture an image of a baby on its mother’s lap. After so many failed attempts when I heard the alarm call of a sambar deer suddenly the baby langur went straight to it’s mothers lap and started suckling. I made no mistake in capturing it in the best possible way. A wait of almost one hour had paid off.Capturing emotion in the eyes of the mother and baby was a very difficult task in such low light with an overcast sky.
© Yoshihiro Abiko, Hokkaido, Japan
The Noge peninsula in Hokkaido is a paradise where various wild animals live. On this day, I was able to capture these two northern foxes. Who won or lost this fight was determined by comparing the size of their mouths this way they could avoid a real physical conflict. This is an important behavior to keep good relationships between foxes. When the game was over they parted ways. It was a freezing day where the cold of winter still remained but I was lucky to see this heartwarming scene.
© Jayaprakash Bojan, Singapore
In August 2017 I was in Tanjung Putting National Park, Kalimantan, Indonesia looking for orangutans and proboscis monkeys for my book on primates of Southeast Asia. I lived on a small house boat for about a week searching around the river. One morning two days before I had to leave I was talking to my guide and local rangers and one of them happened to mention that he had seen an orangutan cross the river in another location a few months ago, I knew this was rare and a natural history moment if I could get this on camera especially since orangutans hate water. They gave us the location details and we got there early the next morning hoping to find him. After two days of waiting around the same area one morning one of the rangers on night patrol came by and told us that he saw the orangutan on the opposite side of the river about 200 meters away from where I was and there could be a possibility of him crossing the river. I was very lucky to have seen this very rare event.
© Rebecca Levisman, Raanana, Israel
This is a photo of a Mediterranean chameleon on a Paulownia fortunei branch on a sun-drenched day at noon. The photo shows its prehensile tail, which assists it in clinging to branches, and one of its cone-shaped eyes. Chameleons can move their eyes separately and look in opposite directions simultaneously, which accords them a unique vision capacity. When a chameleon locates its prey with one eye, it moves its head in the direction of its prey, directs both eyes, and then sees its exact location.
© Thomas Vijayan, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
© Kuanliang Din, Hubei, China
© Shinichi Masuda, Tokyo, Japan
© Shinji Sato, Hokkaido, Japan
© Thomas Vijayan, Oakville, Canada
© Pramod C L, Gurgaon, India
© Shivang Mehta, Haryana, India
© Mingjian Yu, Wuhan, China