With Europe Award winners unveiled yesterdayGerman Society for Nature Photography (GDT) recently announced its winner Annual fritz polling prizeThe late award -winning German Nature was nominated for photographer and writer, who died in 2007 at the age of 71 years.
The Fritz Polling Award is honored for recognizing the portfolio of photographs annually that shows rigorous association with a compelling nature photography theme or story. The winning portfolio shows exceptional technical and artistic achievement.
In the case of this year’s winners, Xavier Ajanar and Tobias Gajarde, themes can hardly vary.
Spanish professional photographer Aznar’s award-winning project, ‘Love, Hate and Rattalsnak “, focuses on Rattalsanek, especially in American West, and how people have different relationships with toxic reptiles, which have erased almost a few rats from the United States to the United States.
Meanwhile, Fritz Polling Junior Award winner, Norwegian 22 -year -old Tobias Gajarde, focuses on a very different rigid climate: Arctic. His series, “Norwegian Winter”, captures the beautiful peace and inhuman cruelty of the winter, as well as animals that avoid its cold hug.
Fritz Polling Award 2025 Winner, Xavier Azar – ‘Love, Hate and Rattsanek’
Spanish professional photographer and Sony imaging ambassador Xavier Ajanar Ajanar International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) is an associate fellow. For example, it is a little surprising that his award winning series focuses on the protection efforts around Ratalsanek, and how people affect the diverse relations of people with animals how they are treated, seen and preserved in various fields.
Breaking, the powerful photo series shows how Rattalasane has been revered and modified once. People often go to snakes, but especially toxic people, with significant fear and prejudice, which dramatically affects that snakes are provided protection or hunted near extinct.
Perfectly extended from some states, many rattlesnake species remain on the verge, and some are actively, legally hunted till date. For example, Sweetwater is the world’s largest rattlesnake round-up annual, which is held annually at the second full weekend in Sweetwatter, Texas. It draws thousands of visitors, and people enter to hunt for rattlesnacs over 20,000 pounds. Hunters collect snakes for their skin, toxin and meat, often employing cruel methods to do so.
However, some rattlesnakes round-ups have transferred from hunting to education for years, capturing snakes for studies and released back into the wild.
Aznar’s photo story shows the entire spectrum of how people see and treat Rattalsnaks in the United States, and emphasize an important ecological role playing snakes. Of course, snake poison is also necessary, as it has tremendous medicinal benefits and can even be used to treat serious conditions such as cancer.
When it comes to interacting with wildlife, there is always a delicate balance, and protectionists are working hard to ensure that the rattlescanes are protected, wrong information is overcome, and people’s views towards snakes change.
Fritz Polling Junior Prize 2025 Winner, Tobias Gajarde – ‘Norwegian Winter’
Tobia’s Gajarde is a 22 -year -old photographer, student and Oslo, Norway soldiers. He fell in love with the Nordic forest at an early age, especially during the rigorous Norwegian winter. A student of an economics and a combat photographer at the Arctic Ranger Battalion of the Norwegian Army, Gajard brings a creative passion for its nature photography. By 2025, he is working on mini-cuisines and creating a video behind the work of wildlife photography.
His project, “Norwegian Winter”, leads the winter in the Scandinavian north from its cool beauty to its fierce storms. As aesthetically pleasant in the form of colds because it is disabled, and the Gjerde specialist catches both sides.
Their primary focus is on animals who have no alternative to the winter that unlike the humans of the region, living outside and facing the worst. As Gajarde says, “They have to bear whatever nature comes out under circumstances.”
“To avoid the extreme challenges of the Norwegian winter, (animals) must be exceptionally flexible and highly adapted,” Gajarde says. “With my images, I try to capture this commendable flexibility – and do justice to notable creatures brave to the Nordic winter.”
More than this year’s Fritz Polling Award winners
Aznar and Gjerde’s award winning series are additional images The German Society for Nature is available on the photography websiteThe work of each photographer will also be displayed along with other winners of several GDT photography competitions at the upcoming International Nature Photography Festival in Lunen, Germany. The festival takes place from 24 October to 26 October.
Image Credit: German Society for Nature Photography (GDT). Photos painted by Xavier Ajanar and Tobias Gajred.
