Above: "Alert Bobcat" by Carlos Casados, this year's third place winner of the animals category.

“The sun was rising as fog blanketed the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. I was experimenting with different shutter speeds to try to capture the look I wanted—that combination of stillness and movement. I settled on 1/20th of a second so everything ‘still’ would be clear, and everything ‘moving’ would have just the right amount of detail. I was very pleased to see that the image contained these two still cranes, because sandhill cranes mate for life.” —Robert Bellospirito

Animals Category Collage
1st Place: Mates, Robert Bellospirito
2nd Place: Morning Preen, Jenna Crovo
3rd Place: Alert Bobcat, Carlos Casados
​Honorable Mention: Tres Amigos, Timothy Baca