AAP Magazine #54 - Nature 2025
Nature
Announcing Winners and Merit Awards
Winner's Gallery
Isabella Tabacchi
Tree of Life
This is an aerial view of Iceland’s highlands where braided glacial rivers and mineral-rich streams form a natural pattern resembling a glowing tree. Vibrant yellow-green branches spread across dark volcanic terrain, while a pale blue river curves like roots below. This rare formation shows nature’s artistry, where water, sediment, and light create a living symbol of Earth’s resilience.
First Place winner
$500 Cash Prize
Italy
Tree of Life
Marco Di Marco
A Powerful Onset
The powerful onset of the 7th eruptive episode of the 2023-2025 eruption of Svartsengi volcanic system, in southwestern Iceland the 21st of November 2024. All the eruptions started in the same way, with a several kilometers long eruptive fissure producing massive lava flows. In this case a 2,5 kilometers long lava flow is developing from a 4 km long eruptive fissure visible in the background. The effusive rate of this eruption has been estimated around 1500 cubic meters of lava per second.
Second Place Winner
$300 Cash Prize
Iceland
A Powerful Onset
Thebugvoice
Glass embrace
Deep in the forests of Costa Rica, this pair of cascade glass frogs (Sachatamia albomaculata) embraced to produce the next generation, a generation of hope in a jungle full of dangers and and constantly looming climate change.
Third Place Winner
$200 Cash Prize
Thebugvoice
Spain
Glass embrace
Merit Award's Gallery
Stefano battistelli
An Ibex from a fairy tale
I photographed this beautiful wild ibex in the Italian Alps, very close to the Maslana alpine hut. On the trail leading to the shelter, I noticed a handsome male hiding among the green leaves, perfectly lit. Instead of running away, he gave me a few seconds to pose as if he were a model.
Michael Ritzie
Mushroom - Number 05
Michael Ritzie
United States
Gary Wagner
Morning Light Park Avenue
Black and White Landscape
Julie Wang
A Field Just Before Becoming
Early blooms hover like a gentle cloud, guiding the eye from one tender opening to the next — a moment where everything is beginning to awaken.
Benoit Rondelet
Untitled
Orangutans primarily eat fruit, but their diet is omnivorous and includes leaves, bark, insects (such as ants and termites), and occasionally the eggs of birds or small vertebrates. They do not have a diet of aquatic plants per se, as they are mostly arboreal, but their diet may exceptionally include aquatic plants in order to extract water. We captured a very rare behavior in a female Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmeaus) who built a leaf platform on the water to consume juicy plants.
Tracy Burke
Untitled
Nat Coalson
Vira Laurisilva
Infrared photograph (720nm) of laurel trees at Fanal, Madeira.
Xiaoping Lin
Pass By
The big fish chased the small fish and rushed out of the water together, passing the egret. The egret looked surprised and did not know where the small fish would go under the laws of nature? Just like a poem: I passed you by. You hurried here. Before I noticed, you had gone far away, leaving me a regretful back.
Graham Hobart
LEOPARD DESCENDS TREE #1
This image was captured within the infrared spectrum with a specially modified camera that is calibrated to to match a corresponding lens. Near Kruger National Park, South Africa. Leopards are the only large cat able to descend a tree head first. This is because they have the special ability to lock their wrists.
Abílio Magalhaes
Last Stretch
This photograph was taken on the Trilho da Preguiça trail, in the Serra do Gerês. Near the end of the loop, I explored the slope and, almost unexpectedly, found this tree, its branches concealing an old path. The morning was taking shape, and the sun climbed the trunk as if gently caressing it. Sometimes we find magnificent trees in the forest, but this one guards an intimate corner, a small secret waiting to be contemplated.
Abílio Magalhaes
Portugal
Turgay Uzer
Now is not a Good Time!
This young African Wild Dog was not happy happy about being disturbed while it was resting from its hunt. They are neither wolves nor dogs, despite their common English names, and the fact that their scientific name, Lycaon pictus, translates to 'painted wolf'. Like wolves and dogs, African wild dogs do belong to the Canidae family. African wild dogs are the only extant species in the Lycaon genus. Nowadays African Wild Dogs are restricted to a few isolated areas of Southern and Eastern Africa.
Turgay Uzer
United States
Marta Fiscus
Crab Spider on Her Throne
An Orchard crab spider claims a little zinnia bud as if sitting on a velvety cushion surrounded by gem-like petals. She establishes a regal presence as if on her throne with a crown of jewels. I shot this from above using a ladder and 60mm super-macro lens. I used a wide aperture to capture the parallel surfaces of her tiny face and the emerging petal tips, focused to less than 1mm deep for the smallest detail and soft bokeh.
Marta Fiscus
United States
George Dian Balan
WHEN MAMMOTHS RULED THE EARTH
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 image is timed to portray the moment the bull raised his head while eating, displaying his strongly curved, 9 feet long tusks against the canvas of a sky balanced by glorious clouds.
Conrad Peloquin
Untitled
Conrad Peloquin
United States
Sean Du
Tangle Ridge
Rocky Mountains, Alberta
Myrtie Cope
Wild Rose
Close up photo of a pink wild rose with embroidery and beads
Roberta Pagano
Frozen nap
A young Polar Bear sleeping with mum.
Guenther Reissner
Foggy Woodlands
I love autumn, with it moody foggy atmosphere. I captured this image near my hometown in Austria.
Guenther Reissner
Austria
Alessandro Natalini
Untitled
Jens Rosbach
Icy World: Snowfall over the Artic Sea
Iceberg in western Greenland. Due to the longer exposure time, the snow drifting in the polar wind looks like a graphic curtain. Because of climate change, the fragile polar world is gradually disappearing. Taken in March 2025 on the island Ummannaq.
Jens Rosbach
Germany
Aindreas Scholz
The Most Beautiful Anthropocene # 55
Unique cyanolumen on expired, pre-exposed black-and-white darkroom paper with plant fragments and residual salt crystallisation; 25 × 20 cm. South of France, 2023.
Don Jacobson
Backlit Mushroom
Thank You!
