Winner of the Fritz Pölking Award 2009
Kevin Schafer
Kevin Schafer (Seattle/USA) specializes in endangered species and threatened eco-systems around the world. His images have appeared in all the major science and nature magazines around the world, and is the author of more than ten books, including Penguin Planet, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award. Committed to putting his images to work in conservation, Kevin worked for many years with the World Wildlife Fund, documenting threatened areas worldwide, and is a Founding Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
The Amazon Dolphin story was his first for National Geographic, published in June 2009. He is now at work on a new story for the magazine.
Amazon River Dolphins, Brazil
My goal with this project was to produce the first-ever intimate collection of images of Amazon River Dolphins in the wild. Little-known, and often secretive, these Botos (as they are known in Brazil) have never before been photographed in detail. The initial images were made on a personal expedition to the Amazon in 2007, where I was able to get in the water beside wild dolphins in the Rio Negro. I presented the pictures I took on that first trip to the editors at National Geographic Magazine, who agreed to send me back to get more coverage. In all, I spent almost six weeks in the Amazon.
There were many challenges. Even in that part of the Amazon, underwater visibility is measured in centimeters, not meters, and the dolphins came and went according to their own schedule. In addition, my editors had urged me to get more than just nice portraits – they wanted to see the dolphins in context, in the flooded forest that is their seasonal home during the months of the rainy season.
In the end, I feel I got a good cross-section of portraits, behavior, and habitat that help tell the story of these unique, and threatened animals.
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| "Luftaufnahme des überfluteten Regenwalds" |
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| "Boto on the Move" |
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| "Boto Portraits" |
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| "Underwater Argument" |
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| "Boto Competition" |
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| "Boto and Rainforest" |
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| "Boto Breath" |
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| "Boto Polo" |
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| "Boto Jumping" |
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| "Careful Capture" |
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| "Boto in the Canopy" |
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| "Boto Spiral" |
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| "Boto Eclipse" |
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| "Over-under Botos" |
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| "Boto Flukes" |
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| "Amazon Sky" |
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