People keep asking Matt Deakin if his photo is AI. Honestly, looking at the shot, you can't blame them. An ancient, ghost-like green sawfish glides through hazy water, flanked by sea turtles in a composition that looks straight out of a fantasy film. Yet this exact frame just took out the top spot at the 2026 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition.
Titled Ethereal Encounter, the image beat over 2,100 entries from 17 countries to win Australia's most prestigious nature photography prize. But the story behind the frame involves a lot more than luck. It features fading light, a remote stretch of the Western Australian coast in the Pilbara, and a drone battery flashing a terrifying 3 percent warning while hovering 2.5 kilometers out at sea.
If you love wildlife photography or care about marine conservation, this moment represents everything that makes field work exhausting, nerve-wracking, and completely worth it.
The Race Against a 3 Percent Battery
Fieldwork never goes according to plan. Deakin was operating a DJI Mavic 3 Pro equipped with a Hasselblad camera off a remote shoreline when the weather and equipment started working against him. Swarms of mosquitoes and sandflies were biting him on the beach while he tried to keep a stable connection to the aircraft miles offshore.
Then, the battery indicator hit the red zone.
Drone pilots know that feeling in their stomach. You have mere seconds to decide whether to bring the gear home safely or risk losing an expensive piece of equipment to the ocean. Right at that crunch time, a large green sawfish emerged from deeper water, moving right through a group of sea turtles. Most of the turtles scattered, but one stayed close.
Deakin pushed the battery as far as it could possibly go. He framed the shot on the live feed, pressed the shutter, and managed to fly the drone back just before it died. When the equipment touched down on the sand, the battery flatlined completely. That single frame turned out to be the winning shot.
Why This Sawfish Image Actually Matters
It is easy to get caught up in the technical drama of a dying drone battery, but the real weight of this photograph lies in the animal itself. The green sawfish is critically endangered. Populations have plummeted over the past century due to accidental entanglement in commercial fishing nets, targeted fin trade, and the destruction of the shallow coastal estuaries and mangrove creeks they call home.
Seeing a green sawfish alive and swimming freely in the wild is rare. Most Australians will go their entire lives without ever laying eyes on one, even if they spend time near the northern waters where these ancient elasmobranchs still cling to survival.
When an animal this rare appears in a clean, uncluttered aerial composition alongside familiar sea turtles, it forces people to pay attention. Judges for the competition praised the image not just for its eerie visual beauty, but for its conservation storytelling value. It reminds the public that entire ecosystems are operating just beneath the surface of remote coastlines—ecosystems that we are currently at risk of losing forever.
Lessons From the Field for Aspiring Photographers
If you look at breathtaking wildlife photography online, it is easy to assume the pros just sit on beaches waiting for magic to happen. The reality is quite the opposite. Deakin was a first-time entrant in the AGNPOTY competition, submitting a shot that had already won a smaller local contest.
The takeaway here isn't that you need expensive gear, though a high-end drone certainly helps. The lesson is about endurance. You have to endure the elements, manage your risk when equipment fails, and stay alert during the boring stretches when nothing is happening. Nature doesn't hand out award-winning frames on a predictable schedule. You have to be out there in the heat and the bugs, ready to press the button when the universe gives you three percent battery left.
Go check out the winning exhibition if you get the chance. It's on display at the South Australian Museum and touring around, offering a rare glimpse into a ghost world we desperately need to protect.
