Neighbors of The Nature Category

Some Winning Shots From our Friends at Flow 

There's something to be said about the power of connection. And wherever you find that in life, it's important. It's the whole reason behind Flow — helping to combat loneliness and helping good humans create meaningful relationships with those around them. And the same thing can be said about photography and its power to bring people together. Lucky for us, we get to witness this on the daily amongst our neighbors who call Flow home around the world. Here's a look at some of the images those neighbors entered into The 2026 Flow Photo Contest. 

Still Here

By Sofia Troya | @sofiatroya 

Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Laikipia, Kenya

"There’s a word for what conservationists feel but rarely say out loud: eco-grief. The weight of what’s already gone and the fear of what comes next.

I felt it standing in Ol Pejeta, home to the last two northern white rhinos on Earth, watching this black rhino move through the grass with two oxpeckers on its back. In a place often associated with extinction, I found myself noticing something else: resilience. A reminder that life persists through relationships, cooperation, and adaptation.

Eco-grief is holding loss and hope at the same time. This photograph is about paying attention not only to what has been lost, but to what remains." — Sofia Troya

What did this moment in nature make you notice or feel that you might otherwise have missed?

Standing in Ol Pejeta, I expected to feel sadness. The conservancy is home to the last two northern white rhinos, and the story of what has already been lost hangs heavily over the landscape. Instead I found myself understanding what resilience was. This black rhino moved through the grass with an almost prehistoric confidence, carrying two oxpeckers on its back as if they had always belonged there. It reminded me that nature is never made up of a single species surviving alone. Life persists through relationships, cooperation, and adaptation.

In a place that is often associated with extinction, I found myself paying attention to what remains and not just what has been lost.

What connection, visible or invisible, does this image capture between you and the living world around you?

The visible connection is the one between the rhino and the oxpeckers. They depend on one another in ways that have evolved over thousands of years. And the invisible connection is my own place within that story.

As a conservationist, it can be easy to think of wildlife as something we are responsible for protecting, separate from ourselves. Moments like this remind me that we are part of the same living system. The choices people make ripple outward into ecosystems, just as the health of ecosystems ultimately shapes our own future.

This image captures a relationship between species, but it also reflects a relationship between people and nature: one built on interdependence rather than separation.

Explain to us your meaning and interpretation of eco-grief — how is this portrayed in the moment you captured?

To me, eco-grief is the emotional weight of loving a world that is changing faster than we can fully process.

It is grieving species, landscapes, and ecological relationships that are disappearing, while still showing up each day to protect what remains.

I felt that tension while taking this photograph. The northern white rhino is a subspecies now considered functionally extinct. Yet in front of me was a black rhino carrying on, surrounded by the ordinary, enduring relationships of life.

That is what eco-grief looks like to me: holding loss and hope at the same time.

This photograph is about recognizing that even in the shadow of extinction, life continues to persist, adapt, and deserve our attention.

Striped Stalk 

by Patricia Marin | @patrilita

Pench National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India

"Two things happen to me every time I step into the wild — and this encounter brought both to their fullest intensity.

The first is presence. In a world moving faster every day, flooded with noise and stimulation, wildlife encounters strip all of that away. That tiger commanded every cell of my attention. The moment lasts only seconds, but it imprints forever — and there are very few things left in modern life that make you feel that alive, that completely here.

The second is magic. These encounters happen when you least expect them, and when they do, they pull out of you a mixture of joy, adrenaline, and absolute stillness that is almost impossible to describe unless you’ve lived it yourself.

And underneath both — an unexpected sense of connection." — Patricia Marin 

What connection, visible or invisible, does this image capture between you and the living world around you?

In the original manuscript of The Jungle Book, Mowgli carried a secret password to communicate with every creature in the jungle:

“We be of one blood, ye and I.”

With those words, no living being could deny him passage or help. Kipling wrote those pages inspired by the forests of Pench National Park, in central India — the very jungle I was standing in. And from the moment I entered the park, that phrase had been quietly resonating in my head.

Then, under the golden light of dawn, she appeared. This stunning tigress looked at me. I looked at her. Two beings, scanning each other in absolute silence — reading the moment, reading each other.

And in that stillness, the phrase came back, and this time it wasn’t Mowgli’s words. It was mine:

We be of one blood, ye and I.

How did it feel to finally witness this majestic and elusive creature after 10 days in the park?

The first thing I felt was gratitude.

Anyone who has spent time in the wild knows that nothing is guaranteed. Nature is always in charge, and these encounters are a gift — one that may or may not come. I always say that magical wildlife encounters require three things: patience, knowledge, and a little luck.

You can have the patience to search for days. You can have the knowledge to know where and when to look. But there is always that element of luck that has to fall in your favor.

I have been fortunate enough to encounter many tigers in the wild over the years, and with each one I have learned more about their behavior, their rhythms, their routines. That knowledge shapes how you search, how you wait, how you read the forest. But no matter how much you learn, that element of luck never disappears — and that is precisely what keeps these moments so rare and so charged. Even when an encounter lasts only seconds, it is enough. More than enough to justify every hour of waiting, every early morning, every day that ends without a sighting.

That morning, we had found her. But finding a tiger is only the beginning. We waited, giving her space, letting her grow comfortable with the presence of the vehicle — until she finally decided to move, and gave us this.

Ten days of waiting, distilled into a few seconds of absolute magic.

That is the gift of wildlife. And that is why, no matter how many times I’ve been in the field, I never take it for granted. Because in the end, nature always has the last word.

Surprisingly Gentle

by Susanne van Eyl | @orley_travels

South Texas

"We expect protective mothers to be mammals or birds, but never reptiles. But alligator mothers are very protective, and they have a lot of babies to guard. Sometimes you see 10 or 15 babies sitting on or next to mom. This is not the image people have in mind when thinking about alligators." — Susanne van Eyl

What did this moment in nature make you notice or feel that you might otherwise have missed?

Photography has made me look at everything very carefully. The alligator mom and her young were so well-camouflaged that I might have missed them had I just walked by looking at the ground or my phone. When I noticed them, I also saw that several ladybugs had landed on her nose. The more you look, the more you see, and nature is like that everywhere.

How does seeing a predator defy its stereotype in this moment help you better understand and respect the natural world? 

The expectation most people have — and I was no exception until I spent more time in Texas — is that alligators lay eggs and then walk away. But the mothers are very attentive guardians. It can be dangerous to unwittingly pass by too close to a nest, as we found out when an alligator came hissing at us out of nowhere one day. So to see a 6-foot alligator with a baby on her head is definitely unexpected. A moment of beauty and grace in a very unexpected place.