This photograph of a Siberian tiger emerging at pace from a deciduous forest has an intoxicating level of energy. As soon as I looked at that the image on the LCD ,we packed up and returned to our base – I simply knew that I could do no better, the composition is close to perfect – in particular the inside detail on his right hand paw.

This is a literal picture – there is no ambiguity and no need for interpretation and this clarity serves to make an engagement with the work very simple. It was a good piece of camerawork and the result is a cracking image of a most beautiful, but gravely endangered animal