COIMBATORE: ‘The Sleeping Family,’ a stunning photo of more than 120 elephants sleeping inside a forest in Assam by Sachin Bharali, has won the first prize under the aerial view category at the 15th DJ Memorial International Photography Contest (DJMPC) conducted by Coimbatore-based LMW Limited. Ramachandiran Govindaraj of Coimbatore is the runner-up in the category for his picture ‘The Last Waterhole.’ Sachin Bharali said he took the photo of the elephant herd near his hometown, Jorhat, in 2024. “It was around 4am when I found this herd of 120 elephants resting in the forest. When I saw it through my drone camera, I was speechless,” says Bharali. “I have been following elephants for a couple of years, and this picture was taken in 2024, which was the best year for my career as I shot a lot of elephants in the year. I was following an elephant herd for two-three days, and the herd reached a place where more than 120 elephants were sleeping,” Sachin Bharali said. Govindaraj said his ‘The Last Waterhole’ was shot from a helicopter at Okavango in Botswana. “My perspective is to tell the story of animals. So, during a drought, elephants used to struggle a lot for water. When I saw a herd of elephants drinking water at a waterbody where the water level had shrunk, I clicked the photo.”
The Last Waterhole by Ramachandiran Govindaraj This 15th edition received 12,278 submissions by 2,334 photographers from 37 countries under three categories: Wild Portraits, NatureScapes and Aerial View. The event offers a prize pool worth Rs 12 lakh to the winners. Dinesh Insight won the first prize for ‘Clay Apartments’ and Arnaud Farre won the second prize for ‘Between Black and White’ under the NatureScapes category. Anirudh Kamakeri won the first prize for ‘Early Morning Prayer’ and Onkar Ravindra Bedre won the second prize for ‘Last of Us’ under the Wild Portraits category. Following the awards ceremony, LMW inaugurated a public exhibition at the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Cultural Centre featuring a curated selection of the finest photographs submitted for DJMPC 2026. The exhibition will remain open to visitors till Aug 5.
