The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History opened “Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards Presents: The Best of the Best” Saturday, Oct. 24. The temporary exhibition features more than 100 large-format prints selected from nearly 500,000 images submitted over 20 years by photographers from around the globe for the annual Nature’s Best Photography: Windland Smith Rice International Awards. Photos in the exhibition include dramatic landscapes, exciting wildlife and surprising glimpses of Earth’s icy peaks to mysterious ocean depths. The exhibition will remain on display through October 2016.
African Lion and Cub, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, Kalahari Desert, South Africa
By Lee Slabber, Cape Town, South Africa
“I had been following this pride in the Kalahari for a number of days, focusing on one youngster who was always causing trouble. In this image, his father had been trying to sleep. The cub kept climbing over the adult’s head until the lion growled to warn it to back off. In a moment of brave defiance, the youngster just glared back at his dad. I loved the display of intimacy.”
© Lee Slabber / Nature's Best Photography Awards. Courtesy of Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO EDITORS: This photo can only be used in all media if in conjunction with the promotion of the exhibition and the appropriate credit information is used in its entirety for the corresponding image. Higher resolution .tiff files can be accessed via the following Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/x1cachtm1ntuxz8/AACW_nQxzfnJMF75qcAREr0Ua?dl=0
