Dimitri Zaik, Portraits From The Melbourne Zoo (Documentary/Photojournalism)

Coming from a heavy background in conservation and having grown up for most of my early days ‘in the wild’, the opportunity to collaborate on a series of projects for Zoos Victoria was, for me, a much needed escape from the everyday routine. Documenting a series of portraits of the animals, however, proved to be one of the most challenging photographic endeavours I have undertaken to date. How does one capture something that is being photographed at least a hundred times a day- differently? Personality.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.