/ 2026 / Nature / Wildlife

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Fabian Meckl, Germany
• Date of Photograph
  08.08.2023
• Website
  https://www.fabianmeckl.com/
• Instagram
  @fabianmeckl

Strolling through the grassland, Neema explodes into full power sprint—flyby—trotting out… you can’t always win, and these scrub hares are small and hard to catch.

I had always wanted to get an image of the fastest land animal in full sprint, specifically one with the cheetah running toward me. After several days of observing these graceful cats in the Maasai Mara, I finally got it, and Neema even looked straight into the camera. That truly was the cherry on top, a shot I could have dreamed of, but would have thought impossible.