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A bald eagle arrives to steal a perch on a tree log that offers a strategic view of the shoreline at the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in Alaska. When other eagles drag freshly caught salmon in from the water, these bystanders swoop in to take a share.
San Francisco-based Indian American techie, Karthik Subramaniam, clicked this photo titled “Dance of the Eagles” which has won the National Geographic ‘Pictures of The Year’ contest 2023. After a rigorous vetting process by a team of seasoned Nat Geo photo editors, Subramaniam’s “Dance of the Eagles” photo was named grand-prize winner of the contest for 2023. The software engineer-turned-hobbyist photographer’s winning image depicts a bald eagle battling its fellows for a prime spot on a tree in the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in Alaska.
Selected from nearly five thousand entries, National Geographic today revealed the grand-prize winner of the Pictures of the Year photo contest. Tied to the brand’s annual Pictures of the Year list featuring National Geographic’s top images of the year — 118 out of more than 2 million total — the photo contest invited aspiring photographers from across the country to submit their own favorite image captured in 2022, broken into four categories: Nature, People, Places and Animals.
“Every year in November, hundreds of bald eagles gather at Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve near Haines, Alaska, to feast on salmon. I visited there last two Novembers to photograph them,” says Subramaniam. “Studying their behavior patterns helped me anticipate some of their actions. For example, when an eagle drags salmon to a dry spot, other eagles in the area would inevitably fly there to claim their share, and that leads to chaotic action. They also seemed to have some favorite spots to hang out, and usually, commotion ensues when an eagle wants an already occupied spot. This photo was taken during one such commotion.”
The photo will be featured in the May issue of National Geographic magazine alongside the publication’s leading photographers and will also get a six-month digital subscription to the magazine.
“Hours of observing their patterns and behavior helped me capture moments like these,” says photographer Subramaniam, a software engineer with a passion for wildlife photography. The software engineer turned photographer’s winning image depicts a bald eagle battling its fellows for a prime spot on a tree in the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in Alaska.
“Wherever there’s salmon there’s going to be chaos.” This was Karthik Subramaniam’s motto as he camped out near the shore of the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in Alaska, waiting for action.
It was the final day of his week-long photography trip and just a few hours before his ferry departed, but the software engineer-turned-hobbyist photographer stayed, watching as bald eagles swooped in and out of the fishing grounds. Haines, Alaska, a southern tip of land sandwiched between two inlets, hosts the largest congregations of bald eagles in the world every fall when around 3,000 arrive in time for the salmon run.
Subramaniam noticed there was a log where a few lingered. This choice spot put the eagles in proximity to the shore, where their peers would sometimes arrive with the spoils of a successful hunt: a freshly caught salmon. When a fish appeared, the bystanders would descend for their portions.
As Subramaniam trained his lens on a branch, there was a commotion: an incoming eagle swooped in, intimidating its current resident, and claiming the prime spot. He titled the resulting image “Dance of the Eagles” as an homage to a fictional dragon war in George R.R. Martin’s novel A Dance with Dragons, and submitted it to the National Geographic Pictures of the Year contest.
For years, Subramaniam has been photographing landscapes and his travels, but, in 2020, grounded by the pandemic in his San Francisco home, he started experimenting with wildlife photography. He scoured the local natural reserves—driving an hour to Point Reyes National Seashore and walking the city’s parks—in search of birds and other creatures. Hearing that two bald eagles were nesting on top of an elementary school two hours from home, Subramaniam began going there on the weekends, camping out for as long as it took to capture them flying out to hunt.
The patience he learned in that trial period paid off. On Friday, February 17, his photograph of the eagles in Alaska was announced as our grand prize winner, earning it a spot in the May issue of this magazine. What Subramaniam appreciates most about the photo is the tension of the moment. “It opens up the question: what happened next?” he says. The reality is less mysterious: the triumphant eagle got bored when no salmon appeared and soon surrendered the spot to the next hungry observer.
Nine additional photos were selected as honorable mention winners: Alex Berger, An Li, Bruce Taubert, Eric Esterle, Rhez Solano, Riten Dharia, Tayfun Coskun, Tihomir Trichkov and W. Kent Williamson. The honorable mention winners will be showcased on National Geographic’s Your Shot Instagram page to more than 6.5 million followers, in addition to receiving a six-month digital subscription to the magazine.
