Thailand 2014

I came back from my south-east Asia trip on Sunday. I spent the first two weeks  in Thailand in two groups of photographers that would swap after a week. We were based in a Kaeng Krachan National Park that is the largest park in Thailand and home to a great variety of local fauna. Right next to our lodge was a small pond with countless species of dragonflies. Almost daily, we would see hornbills and we even viewed nesting barbets and if we were lucky we caught a glimpse of a great hornbill. Thanks to a rather unbelievable coincidence for a few short seconds I managed to see a leopard. That encounter was sadly too short to enjoy this precious moment thoroughly but long enough to take at least one shot. This really was an unforgettable moment for me.

Similarly unexpected and precious, was encountering a blue-winged pitta. Pitas are in general very shy birds. They walk on the ground catching insect at the base of a forest but we regularly saw two pairs near our lodge. Taking their picture was still quite hard as they somehow exactly recognised those moments that we had our cameras at the ready. In the end, I overcame an attack of mosquitos and succeeded in taking a decent photograph that I’m proud of.

Petr Bambousek

I am a professional wildlife photographer who over the past 15 years undertook more than 40 photo expeditions to tropical rainforests across the world. You may have seen my photos in various exhibitions, on the Internet and many Czech and foreign magazines and books. A number of my photographs were awarded at local and overseas competitions such as the Czech Press Photo, Nature's Best Photography, Bird Photographer of the Year, Sony World Photography Awards, Big Picture Awards, Nactus Awards or the most acclaimed one - the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. At this particular competition, my photographs were not only in the Final but also, one of my finalist images became a central promotional piece of the whole 2015 WPY travelling exhibition. If you enjoy my work, don’t forget to visit my Photogallery and connect to my Facebook profile.