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19th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
Border Dispute

Border Dispute - two black rhinos fight over their territory in Nairobi National Park. On a particularly busy morning in the Park, I drove off in the most random direction and came across these two fighting each other no holds bared. The one on the right, clearly exhausted, was playing the defensive and was getting the worse of it, with bright red blood dripping down from a wound in his chest. After an hour of this back and forth and for no particular reason I can comprehend, the aggressive rhino stopped, turned around and walked off into the distance, leaving the “survivor” in the middle of the road, immobile and panting for air, for some twenty minutes, before he slowly moved off. This photo immortalizes the scene for me, the left one, with intensity and power radiating from every part of it, especially the glint in its eye, and the right one, fighting on despite the one-sided nature of this contest, holding its ground, no matter how difficult it was getting. Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 16-35 Wide Angle, f/4.0, 1/160, 35mm, ISO 100.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 04.2020
Date Uploaded: 11.2021
Photo Location: Nairobi National Park, Kenya
Copyright: © Aditya Shah