We went to a fantastic photography exhibit (twice, actually) titled “Nature’s Best Photography: Windland Smith Rice International Awards” at the National Museum of Natural History. To say I was blown away by it would be an understatement. I’m a bit hesitant to post photographs of photographs (again), but they are just too breathtaking not to share, so here they are. I have tried to make it clear by not cropping to the photograph borders (in almost all cases) that they’re pictures of pictures and not my work (as if they could be ;-)) since there was some confusion about that when I did this for the female Arab photographers exhibit. I've tried to make them as close to the originals as possible, but color may not be exact, and there is some unavoidable distortion that is sometimes just too difficult or time consuming to eliminate.

This image, “Polar Bear and Cubs," Walpusk National Park, Manitoba, Canada, by Daisy Gilardini of Vancouver, Canada, was the grand prize winner.

Gilardini says: “To witness the polar bears coming out of their dens, a photographer must face the extreme difficulties of -58 Fahrenheit temperatures and gusting winds. First, you must protect your body from freezing – face, hands, and feet being the most vulnerable. The, you must operate a camera’s buttons while wearing bulky gloves. Finally, the camera’s control panel and monitor will likely frost up. Your reward is experiencing moments like this mother cuddling her two four-month-old cubs.”

The exhibit of exhibits, posted earlier: