The 2024 International Photo Jury is pleased to announce that Peter Mather is the recipient of this year’s Grand Prize for his essay Mountain Ghosts.
The Grand Prize will be presented on Saturday, November 2 at the 2024 Festival in Banff, Alberta.
"Canada's Yukon Territory is a vast wilderness, with surprisingly low wildlife populations. The extreme cold, darkness and limited plant communities of the North are reflected in the abundance of animals. Predators and fur-bearing animals in the North, are also generally very shy due to hunting and trapping. This creates a feeling in the North, that many animals are ghosts, we rarely see them, most often we find passing signs of animals in the snow. I wanted to capture this story in imagery, highlighting how our mountains are home to rarely seen wildlife. Using camera traps, flash and long exposures, I captured these images showing wildlife ghosting in photos."
-Peter Mather, 2024 Photo Essay Competition Winner
Peter Mather is a Yukon photographer and filmmaker specializing in outdoor adventure, wildlife, and wilderness landscape photography. He has spent decades following caribou, bears, wolverines and the people of the North. His photography has been published in National Geographic, Canadian Geographic, the New York Times, and Smithsonian Magazine among others. His photo story on wolverines, won the 3rd place prize in World Press Photo competition, in the Nature Stories category and his work has toured across the world.
Peter is represented by National Geographic Image Collection and Minden Images. He is a Panasonic Lumix global ambassador and a fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers. He recently produced the internationally awarded documentary, “Kings of the North” which was released in April of 2023.
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The 2024 Banff Mountain Photo Essay Competition is sponsored by Nikon and Fjällräven.
Find out more about the the Banff Mountain Photo Essay Competition.
Mountain Ghosts- Peter Mather
The international jury is composed of three photographers: Irene Yee (USA) , Mattias Fredriksson (Sweden) and JoJo Das (Canada). To see more information about the jury members click here.
"Great photos have a way of pulling you in, urging you to take a step closer, and Peter's photos captivated me from the moment I saw them. The 'ghosts' of animals resonated with me, hinting at deeper narratives of mystery, disappearance, and the juxtaposition of humanity and nature. His images evoke a sense of seeing things that aren't always visible at first glance, compelling me to shift from a distant observer to someone eager to explore every detail from left to right. The best storytelling does not have to be linear but rather compels the viewer to feel the story as well as see it."
- Irene Yee, 2024 Jury
“Mather's unique and experimental wildlife photography is like nothing I have seen before. The blend of complex technical efforts and the layers within the photos forces you to look and think twice. Mather's fresh perspective on wildlife photography completely separates his work; he took a big risk submitting a series of unconventional images, which paid off."
- Mattias Fredriksson, 2024 Jury
"Peter's imagery forces a pause. There is power in stating the obvious; the mind instantly makes the connection that these double-exposure frames showcase the more elusive creatures of the Yukon. What immediately follows is the narrative one's mind creates for these creatures, the sense of solitude, distance, and an omnipresent search for survival. Peter's photo essay stood out amongst the crowd as a powerful take on the conversations around climate change, conservation, and diminishing wildlife habitat."
- JoJo Das, 2024 Jury