SNOWSTORM LEOPARD
The picture of an elusive snow leopard, captured at an altitude of more than 13,000ft in India's Ladak's Hemis High Altitude National Park, was the reward for 13 months of effort for Steve Winter, a photographer for National Geographic magazine.
"I try to do stories that have never been done before," he told BBC News.
"They do involve an incredible amount of work with scientists and local people. We were lucky in this instance that we got incredible pictures.
"It was collaboration between myself, the team and the snow leopard," he joked.
The project involved 14 remote cameras in roughly 45 locations. It was a case of trial and error - one camera only delivered a picture of half of a leopard in five-and-a-half months.
Working in such harsh conditions, where temperatures plummeted to -40C (-40F), he asked the manufacturers for their advice on the performance of the cameras in extreme temperatures.
"We don't know, tell us when you get back," he recalled.
Commenting on the use of trigger cameras rather than being sat behind the lens, Mr Winter said: "They are something that needs to be used to get intimate portraits of elusive animals.
"I used to hate these cameras because they gave you a record of an animal.
"Images are all about composition and light. If I cannot control that as if I would as I put the camera up to my face, then essentially I have failed.
"So I asked myself that if I did not like these cameras, how can I like them more.
"It turns out that snow leopards are the perfect species on which to use these cameras. They always come to specific locations to mark their territory.
"So I viewed the locations as movie sets. I put the cameras there, I put the lights there.
"I knew the animal would come; it was just wanting for the actor to walk on stage and break the beam."
THE SHOW
This photo showing a young male lion harassing a thirsty giraffe at a waterhole in Namibia has won this year's Young Photographer of the Year prize.
It was taken by teenager Catriona Parfitt during a family safari holiday in 2007.
"When the giraffe first arrived, it was very nervous," Catriona explained.
"As it walked slowly towards the water, it kept looking over its shoulder towards the ridge where there was a pride of four lions."
She added that perhaps the young lion saw a solitary giraffe as too much of a temptation to leave alone, despite the risks.
Competition judge Rosamund Kidman Cox called the image an astonishing shot: "Stage, action, story and onlookers combine to make an unforgettable scene."
TROUBLE-MAKER
Italian Stefano Unterthiner's photo of a mischievous Sulawesi black-crested macaque won the competition's Animal Potraits category.
The monkey earned his nickname "trouble-maker", Stefano explained, because it was more interested in the photographer than being photographed.
After spending weeks following the monkeys in the Indonesian island's Tangkoko National Park, Stefano found that their search for food took them to the coastal edge of the park's forest.
While most of the primates were busy foraging among the rocks for fallen fruits and nuts, one young adult took an interest in Stefano's activities.
"He would leap at me and kick off my back like a trampoline," he recalled. "It was part play, part confrontation, part attention-seeking, part curiosity."
DEADLOCK
David Maitland's "deadlock" is this year's winner of the competition's Behaviour: Other Animals category.
He told BBC News that the photo was just a glimpse of a struggle between a tree-frog and cat-eyed tree-snake that lasted for hours through the night in the tropical forests of Belize.
"The snake had failed to get its jaws around the whole of the frog's head," he recalled.
"It wouldn't let go, presumably because the frog would have leapt away. But it couldn't swallow it, either."
Neither of the creatures showed any sign of giving up in the three hours that David sat in a cramped position.
"It was a complete stalemate," he added. In the early hours, when the pair had moved beyond the focus of his lens, David decided to call it a night.
When he returned in the following morning, there was no sign of the pair and no clue to which had finally broken the deadlock.
CLASH OF EAGLES
The photo of a fight between two white-tailed eagles over the carcass of moose in the depths of a Polish winter secured the top prize in the Behaviour: Birds category for Antoni Kasprzak.
To capture this image, Antoni found a carcass of a moose, which had been hit by a train, knowing that it would be ideal bait for his subjects.
Five hours later, waiting in the sub-zero temperatures of the Polish winter, a struggle broke out between an adult male white-tailed eagle and a young male.
Capturing the shot, Antoni knew the snowy backdrop for an award winning image.
