Tag: books

Australian Photographic Prize 2025 Wildlife Single Capture Gold Awards

Posted in Workshops and Expeditions1 Comment

The Australian Photographic Prize Wildlife category was judged on Saturday, 19 July. This year, I decided to enter the single-image Wildlife category of the Australian Photographic Prize at the last minute due to my hectic travel schedule. I just caught up on the results on You-Tube this morning during some downtime here in Melbourne. Of the four photographs I chose to enter this year, all four made the final round of judging (top 35 entered images in the category). Two of the four received highly coveted Gold Awards, and the remaining two images both earned Silver with Distinction awards, with the Polar Bear being only 1 point shy of a third Gold award. I am not sure what held back the Polar Bear from Gold, as the average scores from the judges is 90.4, which should be a Gold Award? Screenshots of the judge’s scores and images are included below. The overall winner of the category will be announced in the next few days.

Final Update on the Helicopter Polar Bear Incident in Svalbard 26th April 2025

Posted in Workshops and Expeditions1 Comment

Earlier today I finally received an update from the Governors office in Svalbard on their investigation into the harassment of the Polar Bear from helicopter by the Norwegian Polar Institute [NPI] in April last month (Full Story with Update and Podcast). A screenshot of my follow up email and their full response as received today is included below:

As is abundantly clear from the brevity of the email received from the Governors office they have found that the NPI did not violate their permit in the harassment and darting of this Polar Bear. This leaves some very big unanswered questions: The first of which, is, was an investigation even undertaken? and if so, where is the documentary evidence of this investigation?

What about the time-stamped photographs that were submitted to the Governors office that demonstrably demonstrate that the harassment of this Polar Bear went on far longer than NPI’s claimed ‘2-3 minutes’? Additionally, and to date, (and to my knowledge), none of the 12 passenger witnesses, the captain or the first mate of M.S Freya (who all witnessed this event first hand) have been contacted and/or interviewed by the Governors office. How can a thorough investigation be conducted without interviewing the first hand witnesses?

 ‘If’ this behaviour and methodology employed by the NPI did not violate the terms of their permit, then the requirements of the permit are seriously broken. NPI needs to be held accountable for their actions. They cannot continue to act with impunity.

It is worth noting that the Sysselmestern environmental office is directly under and controlled by the environmental ministry in Norway. The environmental industry effectively owns the NPI. This shabby cover up by the Governors office is nothing more than corruption at the highest level. Norway and the NPI should hang their heads in absolute shame at allowing this to continue.

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    Asia Pacific Photography Awards People’s Choice Winner Nature Category

    Posted in Uncategorized3 Comments

    The Asia Pacific Photography Awards have just announced the 2024 People’s Choice Award winner for the Nature category. I am thrilled to report my recent photograph of the Pallas Cat, titled ‘Regal Cat’, from Mongolia in winter was the overall People’s Choice award winner for 2024.

    In 2022, I completely swept the pool in this category, taking First, Second, and Third place. This year, I won the Peoples Choice award in the nature category and drew with myself for third place in the judged category with the Pallas Cat photograph and the Pygmy Owl photograph. All three of my entered photographs were also top 20 and top 10 finalists.

    I will return to Mongolia again in January 2025 and 2026 to photograph the Pallas Cat and the Snow Leopard. The 2025 expeditions are already sold out, but bookings are now open for 2026. You can email me for further information or to register your place. Full details are also available on my website at http://www.jholko.com/workshops.