Nature Photographer of the Year Award for Tibor Litauszki

Tibor Litauszki received the title of Nature Photographer of the Year at the Magical Hungary (VM) awards ceremony and the opening of the nature photography exhibition at the Hungarian Natural History Museum, where the winners of the photo competition and the special prizes were also presented , the organizers told MTI on Wednesday.

At the award ceremony, Péter Gaál, founder and managing director of Magical Hungary, announced that starting this year, VM takes over the country's two most prestigious nature photography competitions, the Hungarian Nature Photography Grand Prize and Nature Photographer of the Year, which it founded itself, offering Hungarian nature photographers challenges and opportunities to showcase their work 365 days a year.

The organization believes that the merger will provide more and more Hungarian photographers with a platform to showcase their work in a dignified manner and achieve greater success beyond our borders, Péter Gaál emphasized.

According to the announcement, the title of Nature Photographer of the Year was awarded to Tibor Litauszki, who was born in the east-central Hungarian town of Kiskőrös and lives in Germany. The photographer's images regularly feature in domestic and international competitions. He started out photographing birds, then began to capture more and more species with his lens. He first entered the Nature Photographer of the Year competition with a picture of a kingfisher, for which he received a special award. His favorite locations are the Kiskunság National Park, E Hungary, the Őrség National Park region around Sárvár, W Hungary and the landscapes of Germany.

The title of Young Nature Photographer of the Year is awarded each year to the photographer who scores the most points in the Youth category. This year, the award went to Árpád Király from Balmazújváros, E Hungary. The high school student began to take an interest in photography in December 2022. He volunteers in the LIFE habitat reconstruction projects in the Hortobágy pasture land, helping with synchronized counts and nest surveys.

This year, the jury selected Csaba Szabó's photograph entitled "Did you catch it?" as the nature photo of the year. In the award-winning photo, a fish rises into the air in the morning silence of Lake Balaton to catch its prey, a mosquito. Colored by the light of sunrise, the photo offers a rare glimpse into the everyday, yet often hidden, moments of the lake's wildlife, the jury noted.