Ice leopard - Carlos Villoch - Wildlife Photographer of the Year2006

2006: Animal Portraits - Highly Commended

Carlos Villoch Enlarge image Ice leopard

Carlos Villoch (Spain)

Ice leopard

After an uneventful ice dive, Carlos was returning to his boat in an inflatable. He had been photographing penguin chicks making their first leap into Antarctic waters - a dangerous feat, as leopard seals are usually lurking close by. Suddenly, he spotted one of these powerful predators swimming around a chunk of ice. His oxygen tank was empty, and so he decided just to snorkel. 'As I slipped into the water, thoughts of how these huge seals can turn aggressive, with fatal consequences, escalated in my mind.' Melting ice made the visibility terrible, maybe only a couple of metres, but the silhouette of the three-metre-long seal against the ice loomed large. 'As it grew more confident,' he says, 'I grew less. When it suddenly zoomed from the gloom to look at itself in my camera lens, my heart nearly stopped. Goodness knows how a penguin must feel.'

Nikon D70 with 10.5mm lens; 1/400 sec at f7.1; 200 ISO; Ikelite housing; double Ikelite strobes.