Jenaya Awarded for 2nd Time in Nature’s Best

It’s our pleasure to announce that Jenaya has been awarded in the 2015 Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice International Photography Awards. This is her second win in this competition, having been named the Youth Photographer of the Year in 2013.

This year’s awarded image was taken outside of Kamloops, British Columbia on a photography trip looking for Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep (formerly known as California bighorns), a species-at-risk. We were rewarded in finding a great group of rams, and Jenaya, Josiah and I (John), headed out–and up–in search of good angles for some animals-in-their-environment images of them.

Jenaya photographing a couple of rams relaxing on the sage-covered slopes outside Kamloops, British Columbia. Several minutes later, she squeezed the shutter on her next award-winning image, “Band of Brothers.”

The sheep ended up being remarkably comfortable with us, and before long had moved down closer to us in the sage-covered hills. Jenaya got some great shots with the canyon behind, showing a bigger picture of their environment, when part of the group turned to move down into a nearby coulee. Although all three of us photographed the scene, Jenaya ended up capturing a remarkable moment where four of the rams lined up in near formation as they stepped out. Josiah and I were incredulous when she showed us the image on the back of her camera later, as she had somehow chosen the only angle where the rams were spaced out so perfectly.

Jenaya was in the perfect position to capture this split-second moment when four Sierra Nevada Bighorn rams seemingly step out in formation. The result? “Band of Brothers” became her second image to be awarded in Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice International Photography Awards, and is already a best-selling Open Edition fine art print.

Jenaya’s winning image has been published in the Fall/Winter 2015 edition of Nature’s Best Photography Magazine, and appeared in our 2016 Launstein Imagery Wildlife Calendar.

“Band of Brothers” is now available as an Open Edition print and was a huge hit at several art shows it was exhibited at in 2015. Despite only being released in August, it has become one of our best-selling prints for the year.

Jenaya’s friend and fellow award-winning young photographer, Ashleigh Scully, was also awarded in the competition with her beautiful image of a red-morph Eastern Screech owl, as well as our friend and outstanding wildlife photographer, Tin Man Lee, whom Jenaya met at the 2013 Awards at the Smithsonian when she was named Youth Photographer of the Year and Tin Man was awarded the Grand Prize.