Wildlife/Animals nominee

This project brings back to life Ice Age giants that have captured our imagination: woolly mammoths and rhinos, cave bears, the giant Irish deer and the steppe bison. This is a journey back in time via the most formidable genes left in the glorious giants of today.
I travelled to Africa, North America and Asia to look for the very last individuals with magnificent genes. It took me several years and sometimes several trips to the same place to achieve that.
This project is unprecedented in the history of wildlife photography. In this series there are only a part of the best pictures achieved. Some of them are already published by National Geographic, Africa Geographic and Wild Planet.
Big plains bison are today’s equivalent of the prehistoric steppe bison.
Big Alaskan coastal brown bears ... cave bears.
White rhinos with horns-to-the-sky ... woolly rhinos.
Big antlered giant moose ... giant Irish deer.
African (and Asian) elephants with tusks-to-the-ground ... woolly mammoths.
There are very few individuals with such genes left today, sometimes less than 10 within the respective species. We may have a very last opportunity to save them. They need armed guards, medical surveillance and proper legal protection.

Dian is a multi-award winning fine art wildlife photographer, scientist, author, inspirational speaker and world records discoverer, specialised in world record and world class individuals in iconic megafauna species.
He creates timeless images by using an immersive approach, portraying as never seen before giants that have captured our imagination. He pays much attention not only to the subject selection, perspective and composition, but also to body postures. If a Statue, a Monument were to be raised to a species, what would that look like?
Dian is the author of the award-winning book The World As It One Was (2020), which combines arresting visuals with solid science. He supports local conservation projects in Africa with proceedings from his book and from fine art prints, including as a two-time contributor to Prints for Wildlife.
He was a member of the jury of the Golden Turtle Photography Awards (2023) and the Jackson Wild Film Festival (2022) and the curator of the exhibition Europe's Wild Heart (Brussels, 2019).
Dian has 10 years of artistic, scientific and conservation experience working with big-tusked African and Asian elephants and about 30 of his images were awarded or were finalists in prestigious photography competitions around the world.