We won it all for the 13th time. These are the editions of the international contest “Fotografare il Parco”, organized by Stelvio, Gran Paradiso, Abruzzo-Lazio-Molise and de la Vanoise National Parks with the support of Alparc (Alpine Network of the Protected Areas) and Federparchi, along with the participation of La Rivista della Natura as media partner.
 
The jury, made up of the winner of the 12th edition, well-known naturalist photographers and representatives of the Park, selected the winning images of this latest edition from the 3,200 photographs presented by nearly 450 authors.
 
Once again, the quality level in recent years has grown. Not only technical quality, however. In this edition, many photographs actually showed a narrative vision of nature that corresponds to the ideas of modern photograph and that was particularly appreciated by the jury.
 
These are the results of our 13th edition.
 
The rank has seen a female dominance. The winner was the photograph “Tempo d’amore” by Elisa Confortini, in which the author caught the “embrace” between two stag beetles in the cool shade of a forest. Paolo Taranto came second. The protagonist of the photo is, once again, a small animal: a bat asleep in its refuge, caught in the photo “A riposo tra le radici. Ferro di cavallo minore”. The third place was assigned to an image of a landscape of great depth, where ice and light are the protagonists. In “Frozen kingdom”, the author Marco Barone portrayed the strange geometries of air bubbles trapped in the ice of Lake Moncenisio, in the Vanoise National Park and the rays of a distant sun.
 
Marco Barone was also the winner for the “Park Landscape” category. His photo, “Foggy lands”, confirms his passion for Lake Moncenisio, here portrayed in a scenario seeming to be part of another world.
Tonio Di Stefano, with his photo “Heavenly awakening of winter. Sulle sponde del Lago di Barrea”, wins the prize for the best landscape in the Abruzzo-Lazio-Molise National Park. Here the protagonists are the water and the forest, taken in the cold winter light during a heavy snowfall.
“Notte stellata. Pont” is the image with which Melchiorre Pizzitola wins the prize for the best landscape in the Gran Paradiso National Park. The Milky Way, shining as it could only be possible in the mountains, overlooks the nature of the Park.
Small men are confronted with the crevasse of the ice giant increasingly fragmented and covered with debris following climate warming in the photo “Val Cedec. Vedretta del Pasquale”, with which Elisabetta Faccin won the prize for the landscape in the Stelvio National Park.
The best landscape of the Vanoise National Park is the long night exposure “La cascade Saint Benoit” in Avrieux. The author Jean-Luc Viart, thanks to blurry effects, has well reproduced the sensation of the night rush of the waters in the waterfall.
 
The photographs awarded in the “Park wildlife” category show their protagonists in action in their living environments.
The winner was the photo “Riccio” by Elisa Confortini, in which the thorny insectivore was caught during a night excursion in the rain. The second prize went to “Trio” by Thomas Delahaye where two chamois and a fir tree seem to get lost in the majestic whiteness of a winter landscape.
A deer in love in the forest is the subject of Moreno Pellegrin’s “Bramito in una fredda mattina”, who won the third prize.
 
In the “Park microcosmos and natural details” category, Giuseppe Bonali wins the first prize with “In agguato”. A small spider climbing on a thorn awaits its prey in a bright space. A world made up of grass is the environment of the European mantis, present in “Attesa tra l’erba”, which came second in the category. Thanks to the wise use of selective focus, in the photograph of Massimo Arcaro, the mantis is the undisputed protagonist. Third comes the image “Ultimo respiro” by Massimo Ferrari, with which the author captured, with great timing, the moment of the catch by a trout of a grasshopper fallen into the water.
 
“Non è la rosa non è il tulipano” is the pictorial image depicting poppies with which Massimo Arcaro, once again thanks to his precise control of the field depth, won the first prize in the “Park plant wolrd” category. The second prize goes to the photo “Jusqu’au cieux!” by Jean-Luc Viart, a black and white image in which winter birches flee to the sky, well enhanced by his square cut.
Valter Pallaoro is the author of the third classified image, “Milioni di spore. Fungo vescia”, where the puffball scatters in the air, as almost in a small eruption, its “smoke” of spores.
 
The jury also reassigned a prize that had not been awarded in the previous edition of the contest.
This special prize was awarded to the “Eclissi di luna a 2910 m.” by Fabrizio Stefani, in which the Moon, made red by the eclipse, observes from above the placid mountain and the Leonessa Bivouac in Valnontey, in Gran Paradiso National Park, testimony to the presence and secular work of men in alpine scenarios.
 
To demonstrating the quality of the photos, eight other shots made by the photographers Matteo Pegoretti, Stanislao Basileo, Emilio Ricci, Stefano Sandrini, Marco Barone, Pierre Bottex, Salvatore Petrantoni and Elisa Confortini were also reported.
 
The contest has confirmed, also in this edition, how the National Parks, thanks to the beauty of their landscapes and their rich life presence – both animals and plants, small or big – are the ideal place to practise nature photography, with respect and trying to become “part of the places”.
 
Place and date of the award ceremony will be defined and announced soon.
 
Bormio, Torino, Pescasseroli, Chambéry, 22 January 2020
 

Thanks to Francesca Berardi for the translation