This was Michel’s second visit to the Pantanal, on a journey to reveal the undervalued beauty of freshwater. ‘I’ve never seen any place on earth with such diversity of forms, shapes and colours,’ says Michel. This scene, ‘like an impressionist painting’, captured the spirit of the place. ‘The longer you look, the more you see, and that is the Pantanal.’
This tiny unnamed tributary is part of the vast Pantanal – the world’s largest tropical wetland. A sprawling patchwork of marshes, its annual cycle of floods nurtures a dazzling variety of life. Water hyacinths have received bad press as invasive weeds, but in its native habitat this species forms the architecture of a ‘freshwater Eden’.
Switzerland
Michel has worked as a professional photographer since 1987 and is a member of the International League of Conservation Photographers. In 2011 he launched the Freshwater Project, and over seven years he photographed 40 different and spectacular freshwater environments across the world. Michel has also shown his work in 40 solo exhibitions.
Mesmerising blood-sucking mosquito Highly Commended in the Behaviour: Invertebrates category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 57.
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Community Care won the Photojournalist Story Award in the fifty-seventh Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. The images document the efforts of the Lwiro Chimpanzee rescue centre and sanctuary, which rehabilitates orphaned chimpanzees.
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A chilly scene of willow trees rising above a frozen lake in Italy.
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