--- title: Federico Veronesi Followed Drag Marks in Namibian Sand to the Wildlife Photograph of the Year description: Federico Veronesi won Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 with The Aftermath, an elephant carrying a dead calf in Namibia's Huab River Valley. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-13T16:00:00.034Z updated: 2026-11-13T16:07:16.863Z canonical: https://thequantumoflight.com/article/federico-veronesi-wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-2026 image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-34780164.webp categories: Photography content_type: Profile publication: The Quantum of Light schema_type: Article about: - type: Person name: Federico Veronesi description: Italian wildlife photographer, born in Milan in 1975 and based in Kenya, where he leads photographic safaris. His photograph The Aftermath won Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026. jobTitle: Wildlife photographer --- Federico Veronesi was tracking elephants along the dry bed of the Huab River in Damaraland, Namibia, when he noticed drag marks in the sand that did not match any animal trail he knew. He followed them until he caught up with a family group. A female elephant was carrying the body of a calf, one of its legs held between her tusk and her trunk. The black-and-white picture he made that day, The Aftermath, is Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026. The Natural History Museum in London, which runs the competition, announced the award on 13th October, after a record 65,403 entries. The Aftermath also won the Behaviour: Mammals category, and a second image by Veronesi, of white rhinos, won the competition's Impact Award. Kathy Moran, who chaired the jury, called the winning picture 'a gut punch' and said it is also evidence of animal cognition. ## What the Elephant Researchers Told Him Veronesi first assumed he was watching a mother carrying her own calf. He sent his pictures to an elephant research project working in the region, and the researchers recognised the female. She had lost a calf of her own several years earlier, and she had picked up dead calves belonging to other females before. Whether she was the mother of this calf is not certain. Veronesi says the picture shows that grief and trauma exist in the animal world too. He has seen elephants change course to touch the bones of their dead, and he describes it as a sacred relationship with death that people have lost. ## From an Office in Milan to a Tent in the Masai Mara Veronesi was born in Milan in 1975. His father photographed nature as a hobby, and a family safari to Kenya when Federico was six left him wanting to live there. He studied economics and then spent about six months at the oil and gas engineering company Saipem, long enough to know it was not the life he wanted. An internship at the Italian Embassy in Nairobi and a job with a charity followed, and he photographed animals at weekends. In 2002 he made Kenya his home, and for a time he lived in a tent in the Masai Mara so that he could photograph wildlife every day. He now lives in Kenya with his wife, Laura, and their son, and the couple run a safari business in which he leads photographic trips and teaches. ## What His Photograph Teaches Any Creator If you [make pictures](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/man-ray-rayograph-painter-photographer), words or music, Veronesi's winning image comes from the part of the work nobody sees. [He spent days tracking one herd](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/the-living-archive-capturing-an-intimate-portrait-of-china-s-last-reindeer-herders), noticed a detail in the sand that most people would have walked past, and followed it. Then he took his pictures to people who knew more than he did and let their knowledge change the story he told about them. You can see The Aftermath, with the other winning photographs, at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, which opened on 16th October 2026. ## A Line in the Sand Veronesi left a career in Milan to watch animals for a living. Twenty-four years after he settled in Kenya, a line in the sand led him to the top award in wildlife photography, and to a question about grief in elephants that even the researchers who know this female cannot yet answer.