The photographer Silke Hüttche won this year’s photo competition of the Gesellschaft für Naturfotografie (GDT) with her picture “Scenes from a Marriage” and is thus Nature Photographer of the Year 2023. The photo shows two kites sitting on a power pole and looking in opposite directions. The photo also won first place in the “Urban Nature” category.
The winner Silke Hüttche comes from Wuppertal. Although her focus is on bird photography, she is also active in other areas such as macro and landscape photography. Hüttchen grew up in Wittgensteiner Land and has lived in Wuppertal for 37 years. Many of her pictures are therefore created in the Bergisches Land and in the nearby Ruhr area.
Nature photography in all its facets
Once a year, the Society for Nature Photography (GDT) honors the “Nature Photographer of the Year” and other photographers in various categories. This year nearly 7000 pictures were submitted by 424 members from 13 different countries. In addition to the main category, there are also seven other categories for the competition: birds, mammals, other animals, plants and fungi, landscapes, the nature studio and the jury prize. The competition is open to GDT members only (unlike the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is open to all photographers from across Europe).
Silke Hüttche reports on her winning photo “Scenes from a Marriage”:
“One of my habits is to constantly look around for birds. So every time I pass this power pole, I look up because there’s always a bird sitting there. Even on this somewhat cloudy day in September 2021, I looked up briefly, discovered the Milan sitting there at one end and immediately afterwards a second arriving, who settled down directly opposite. This seemed to be getting exciting – were the two a couple or competitors? Hoping for some nice action photos, I pulled out the camera and waited. My initial wish was for them to look at each other and somehow interact with each other. But the two just didn’t seem to have anything to say to each other and pointedly looked in opposite directions. I was intrigued by the scene with its perfect symmetry and luckily both birds stayed still long enough to get the shot I wanted.”
We show the winning photos from all categories in our photo gallery:
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