Christine Dell'Amore
To capture western toad tadpoles swimming through a sunlit underwater world, Shane Gross snorkeled for hours through carpets of lily pads, moving carefully to avoid disturbing the fine layers of silt and algae.
The resulting photograph, “The Swarm of Life,” earned Gross the title of 60th Wildlife Photographer of the Year, awarded October 8 by London’s Natural History Museum.
“To have an image win in the 60th WPY is incredibly special, and representing wetlands is a true honor,” says Gross, a Canadian marine conservation photojournalist who has contributed to National Geographic.
He photographed the darkly colored, paperclip-size tadpoles in Cedar Lake, part of Canada’s Vancouver Island. “The challenge was to get the camera-to-subject distance just right and light them well enough to have them pop off the colorful background,” he told National Geographic in an email. (See the 2023 winners.)
“Wetlands can be stunningly beautiful and badly need our protection,” Gross says. “They do so much for us that most people are oblivious to,” such as protecting cities from floods.
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