Winner of the 2023 Wiki Science Competition in the category of “Wildlife and Nature”
The winning submission of Wildlife and Nature category shows us the eggs of a salamander freshly deposited in a small hole, surrounded by leaves, soil, and roots. It was made by Pablo Jimenez Velayos.
More info and runners up available here:
https://www.wikisciencecompetition.org/2024/12/17/winners-of-wsc23-wildlife-and-nature/
Author comment:
I am a software engineer based in Spain and photography is one of my main hobbies. I’ve been taking photos for most of my life, always fascinated by the ability to freeze a moment in time and being able to relive it later. I also use it to counteract my bad memory.
I was not always a fan of showing my works, deeming them average. It took self-reflection, lots of trial and error and finally, pursuing a degree in photography and video, before I decided to start sharing them with my closest ones. Actually, it was my partner Estela who pushed me to submit some of them to this competition.
The story behind this specific picture is one of cold weather, firewood and foggy mornings. At the time, we lived in a little house in the middle of the forest. Several times a day we would go out to the woodshed to collect logs for the fire that warmed our home. One day, we spotted a huge black and yellow salamander inside the shed. Not far from it, was this little clutch of eggs inside a small hole in the ground.
I took my tripod and tried to get as close as possible to it. I didn’t have a macro lens at hand so I even tried inverting the lens while holding it, but the depth of field was too thin. So, I relied on my 18-35mm while using my phone flash and a hiking headlamp as my sources of light.
After taking some pictures, we covered the hole partially with a log to avoid stepping on them. Day after day we visited to see the progress but sadly, we missed the day the eggs hatched.
