The New Year is around the corner, and so it’s that time of the year when we roll out the finalists of the Nature India photo contest!

The third edition of our photo contest has, as usual, received a fantastic response — hundreds of entries from around the world. The theme for this year’s contest was simply ‘Nature’. But like always, we were looking for some inherent connect of the entries with science — the more the science element in the photos, the merrier!

The quality and novelty of some of the entries this year has been beyond our expectation — some of the pictures are actually pieces of art. We have had a mix of amateur and professional photographers, scientists and non-scientists, mobile cameras and high-end DSLRs — all vying to spot and capture science in Nature.

Tough job, as usual, for the Nature India editorial and design team in selecting just three winners. The winners stand a chance of seeing their entries grace the cover page of one of our forthcoming print publications. The winner and two runners-up will receive a copy of the latest Nature India Special Annual Volume and an enviable bag of goodies from Springer Nature.

As a run up to the final announcement, we will be rolling out the top 10 finalists of the photo competition (in no particular order of merit) over the next few days on the Indigenus blog as well as our social media platforms (Twitter and Facebook). The final results will be announced in late December 2016.

So brace up as we announce the Nature India photo contest 2016 finalist number one:

Ravi Hegde, Bengaluru, India

Photo Caption: ‘Bubbling moments’

Ravi Hegde

Ravi, who works in the Department of Psychopharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, India, describes his photo thus:

Ravi Hegde

“This is one of the most memorable photographs I shot in my life. I was fortunate to capture this exciting moment while an incredible Sand Bubbler was actively engaged in feeding and making tiny sand balls. I lied down for an hour, wetting all my clothes in seawater to capture this very rare moment. The Sand Bubbler tosses the sand bubble in a fraction of a second. Bubblers sieve the micro-nutrients grains of sand and feed on them, and then repack unwanted particles in the form of tiny balls, generally 2-3mm in diameter. During low tides, the intense feeding activity of these creatures makes for beautiful intricate patterns of sand balls on the seashore.”

This photograph was taken at the Dhareshwara seashore, near Honavar, Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka, India in May, 2013.

Congratulations Ravi for making it to the top 10!

Nature India’s final decision to chose the winner will be partly influenced by the engagement and reception he/she receives here at the Indigenus blog, on Twitter and on Facebook. To give all finalists a fair chance, we will take into consideration the social media engagement of each picture only during the first seven days of its announcement.

So watch out for our other finalists and feel free to promote, share and like your favourite entries with the hashtag #NatureIndphoto.