After battling out close to 50,000 entries from 95 Countries representing Worldwide, Majed Ali’s mountain gorilla portrait warmly received top most recognition in this year’s Wildlife Photographer Awards recently.
To have the beautiful portrait snap-shot in the wilderness of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest national park, Majed Ali from Kuwaiti Photography testified to having trekked the topographies and trails of the UNESCO – World heritage site for almost 4 hours so as to track ‘’Kibande’’ real name of the mountain gorilla for a photograph opportunity that he didn’t know would later take him and Kibande to the international platform.
Shot in the dense montane lowland vegetation of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest national park and most popular destination in Africa also called ‘’The Place of Darkness’’, an ancient, montane and lowland forest straddling 128 square miles and also along the dormant volcanic Virunga mountain range that spreads across Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda and the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo where almost 53.9% half of the remaining endangered mountain gorilla population resides alongside human life, a rare photo of the 40 year old gorilla from Rushegura family was taken as Kibande calmed amidst rains drop-rolling the entire face in a mugged shot while it closed off eyes and mouth in a meditating character.
The 2021 Wildlife Photographer Awards witnessed multitudes of professional photographers contest for the most notable prize as an experienced panel of Judges looked at angles of innovation, narrative and Technical skills.
Courtesy of the Natural History Museum in London, with the awards now in the 57th edition, upto 19 categories of wildlife photography were recognized including behaviour, photojournalism and portraiture.
‘’The more we climbed, the hotter and more humid it became’’, Majed reveals
Ms Lilly Ajarova, Uganda Tourism Board CEO went to her Facebook and congratulated Majed Ali upon the recognition as she posted, ‘’Congratulations to Majed Ali, winner of best portrait at this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards’’.
She continued, ‘’His winning entry named ‘’Reflections’’ was a photo of Kibande, a 40 year old Mountain Gorilla from Southwestern Uganda. This is a totally beautiful image!
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