Leo Dale captured this stunning image of a bobcat with prey at Point Reyes at dusk last January. He was notified in November that he was awarded first place, Youth Division (10 -17 years), in the Nature Photographer of the Year competition offered by the international nature photography organization, Nature Talks.
Dale explained that he caught the image in a “pretty brief encounter” at the end of an afternoon out at Point Reyes National Seashore. It was getting dark and he was about to leave the park when he saw this cat. He added that a couple of other photographers that had been shooting this cat had stopped because of how dark it was getting. “But I used a panning technique, so the shutter stayed open for longer (1/13th of second, in this case) which let more light in and allowed me to keep shooting later in the evening. So I was probably only with this cat for about ten minutes when it successfully caught a gopher, and trotted across an open area as if showing it off.”
The young photographer, currently a freshman at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, submitted these notes to the competition judges along with his photo:…