Bence Máté's Image

When photographing birds from his waterside hide in Hungary's Kiskunsági National Park, Bence would sleep in the hide.

It was the only way to photograph the birds at dawn (entering the hide at that time would have disturbed them). Bence rigged up a special setup to get a water-level view of his subjects. 'The camera was in an aquarium 3 metres (11 feet) away, linked to my laptop,' says Bence. 'So whenever I took a picture, I could immediately see it on the screen.' To get around the problem of the birds smearing the aquarium with muck, he fixed a spool of transparent printer's film to the front, so he could, by remote control, roll around a clean piece. 'This technique, plus my fisheye lens, gave me a new perspective.' This shot is his favourite - a grey heron that had perched on the hide suddenly swooped down on a great white egret standing on the aquarium. The legs are the heron's, the wings the egret's.