/ 2025 / Nature / Wildlife

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Eric D'Dio, United States

Elephants trekking across a parched dead lake. Like phantoms they quickly march through the heat haze, their padded feet kicking up small puffs of powdery alkaline dust that the wind gathers, then twists into spiraling dust devils to be blown across this hellscape choking everything that is living. The heat bites into the thick heavy textured skin as the sun scorches the earth beneath them. They travel quickly, there's no food or water for kilometers and it's only going to get hotter. Every day the risks are greater, the journey more perilous and they have to travel further for sustenance.