Wildlife / Animals nominee

The climax of over 50 million years of elephant evolution, this Asian Super Tusker sports tusks of the relative size and shape of the Southern Mammoth, the ancestor of the woolly mammoth.
While in the very present, we travel back in time.
This is the kind of image that one would expect from a Jurassic Park opening scene: a minimalistic composition with a mega beast in motion, monumentally rising one step away from the viewer.
The most impressive of the all Super Tuskers I have photographed, he ticks all the boxes of big ivory beauty:
First, the plough-the-earth factor: in resting position both tusks touch the ground.
Second, he is a Super Tusker by length: at least one of his tusks matches or exceeds in length his shoulder height!
Third, he is a Super Tusker by weight: at least one of his tusks weighs 1% or more of his body mass.
Fourth, the tusks are symmetrical.
Fifth, his tusks are widely spread. Indeed, wider tusks are more spectacular and rare in living elephants.
Because Asian elephants usually sport tusks more curved than African elephants, they are also longer relative to the body size of the pachyderm.

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 three-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 is the leading authority in and the most awarded photographer of big tusked elephants; about 45 of his images were awarded or were finalists in prestigious photography competitions around the world, usually multiple times.