Ou r Photographer of the Year 2026 is now closed for entries. The overall winner, runners-up, and their partners will journey to Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda, staying at the newly built Munazi Lodge, the only lodge inside the park. Expect chimpanzee trekking, canopy walks high above the forest floor, waterfall hikes, and encounters with black-and-white colobus monkeys in one of Africa’s most biodiverse montane forests. Read more about the Photographer of the Year 2026 prizes here . In association with Ukuri and African Parks .
Winners will be announced in June.
Here is Gallery 3 of the best Photographer of the Year submissions for this week. To see the other galleries, follow the links to: Gallery 1 , Gallery 2 and Gallery 4
Mist rolls through the gorge as the thunder of Calandula Falls echoes beneath the veil. Calandula Falls, Angola. © Cliff Fawcett A pack of wild dogs brings down a puku with relentless teamwork. “Even though it was a bit of a gory scene, with the fur on the tongue of one of the dogs, I sat in amazement as we watched.” South Luangwa National Park, Zambia. © Lynn Rosenzweig Caked in red mud and moving with heavy purpose, this old buffalo bull looked less like an animal and more like the earth itself. Madikwe Game Reserve , South Africa. © Christy Bennie Boys on stilts gather beside the roadside near the Banna tribal area, balancing effortlessly above the red earth of the Omo Valley. Omo Valley , Ethiopia. © Art Chen Tempers flare on a hippo carcass as a Cape vulture refuses to surrender one of few prized feeding positions. Greater Kruger , South Africa © Benjamin Loon A young leopard cub chooses the quickest route out of a tree, in the midst of a scramble to catch up with its mother. Mara North Conservancy, Kenya © Patrick Maurer A pangolin moves quietly through a bleached landscape, surrounds blurred by motion. Northern Cape, South Africa . © Helgardt Pretorius An elusive African wildcat grips a freshly caught gerbil, its tail framing her face. A rare Kalahari sighting usually gone in a blink. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa . © Charmaine Joubert “Only later did I notice the oxpecker parent feeding its chick on the rhino’s head.” Tanzania . © Stephen Long On the Serengeti kopjes, playful cubs repeatedly break from their games to head back up toward the reassurance of their mother. Serengeti National Park , Tanzania © Zita Quentin A mountain gorilla feeds calmly high in the treetops, a lesser-seen side of a species more often imagined on the forest floor. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park , Uganda. © Mark Fernley “‘Gecko,’ whispered our guide – yet all I saw was a leaf.” Only up close did the remarkable leaf-tailed gecko reveal itself. Moramanga, Madagascar . © Lynn Rosenzweig Baboons settle a dispute – a brief flare of temper in the social churn of the troop. Lower Zambezi National Park , Zambia. © Lukas Walter With the first rains, the Busanga Plains transforms into a network of mud and channels – a perfect, shifting refuge for hippos seen best from above. Busanga Plains , Kafue National Park, Zambia. © Panos Laskarakis Captured during a translocation operation, this elephant bull represents the complex work of managing genetics, populations and space within South Africa’s fenced reserves. Marataba , South Africa. © Wiktoria West A young sifaka clings to its mother, pausing to study the world below with wide, curious eyes. Berenty Reserve, Madagascar . © Simone Osborne Red-tailed tropicbirds wheel gracefully above Nosy Ve, one of the southernmost breeding sites for these elegant seabirds. Nosy Ve, Madagascar . © Jochen Kruip After rare rain, water traces fleeting veins along a Sossusvlei dune – delicate lines soon erased by wind and time. Sossusvlei , Namibia. Beauty and mortality. A butterfly settles on a lioness’s skull. The lioness was believed to have been killed by hyenas. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, Botswana . © Armand Grobler An Ethiopian wolf feeds on the nectar of red-hot poker flowers – a remarkable behaviour only recently documented, making them the world’s first known pollinating carnivores. Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia. © Amit Eshel In a burst of muscle, wild desert horses clash beneath the Namib sun. Aus, Namibia . © Cliff Fawcett Amidst a heavy Kalahari storm, ostrich chicks seek refuge close to their mother. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa . © Grahame Murray At dusk in Mana Pools, a wild dog feeds on a freshly caught impala, dust hanging thick in the air as light highlights its silhouette and shadow. Mana Pools National Park , Zimbabwe. © Greg du Toit What began as an ordinary morning at the end of the dry season along the Chobe River turned into a brutal lesson in survival. A pride of lionesses, hungry after three days without a kill, watched from a rise as two five-month-old leopard cubs emerged to drink some 300 metres away. When one lioness noticed them, the charge was immediate. The cubs vanished into the thicket, but the pride followed, searching relentlessly. Moments later, from a nearby shrub, the air filled with roars and a piercing scream: one cub had been found. In a cloud of dust, it fought back with astonishing courage, even biting a lion cub before being overpowered and killed. The pride moved off, the outcome stark and final – the removal of future competition between apex predators. Note: This image, along with a sequence of photos preceding and following the capture, has been carefully reviewed by our judges and authenticated. It is not AI-generated and not manipulated using AI processes. The image faithfully represents the original scene. Chobe National Park , Botswana. © Petr Slavík Driven by bitter winter cold and the urgent need to feed, this aardvark emerged unusually early, enabling a rare sunset sighting of one of Africa’s most elusive mammals. Makgadikgadi Salt Pans , Botswana. © Laura Dyer Off Paternoster on South Africa’s wild West Coast, a humpback whale rises, lunges, rolls and dives through rich Atlantic feeding grounds, allowing a glimpse of a modern leviathan at work. Paternoster, South Africa . © Rainer Schimpf A secretarybird on a successful rodent hunt in the long grasses of the Kgalagadi. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa . © Melanie Maske A leopard rests along the textured bark of a leadwood tree, its rosettes and the trunk’s fissures merging into an abstract study. Okavango Delta , Botswana. © William Steel To comment on this story: Login (or sign up) to our app here - it's a troll-free safe place 🙂.
