Series description
On the sea ice off Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada, a polar bear mother leads her newborn cubs from the safety of their snow den onto seasonal ice that grows smaller every year. For close to a month, the photographer worked with Inuit guides, travelling by sled and using long lenses at a respectful distance as the family rested, played, learned to hunt and crossed the fractured floes. Their movements trace a simple story of life on a foundation that is slowly melting away — a quiet choreography of survival.
Cathedral
A polar bear mother and her two young cubs pass beneath a towering iceberg. A wide-angle view held both their smallness and the iceberg’s bulk — a quiet moment of family life on a vast, warming stage, and part of a longer story of a family crossing a season of diminishing ice.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Born of Ice
In their first weeks above ground, the cubs rest at the mouth of a wind-carved den, pressed close to their mother. From a distant sled, the photographer waited for the moment the three bodies came together in the shelter.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
First Ride
A cub clambers onto its mother’s back as she crests a low rise, the faint trace of blood from a recent meal still on their muzzles. In its first season above ground, the cub leans into her, gaining a small lesson in warmth, shelter and shared effort across an ever-shorter ice season.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Lesson at the Lip
At the crumbling edge of a drifted ridge on Baffin Island’s sea ice, a polar bear mother rises to meet her cub nose-to-nose as it hesitates above the drop. After weeks of watching quietly from a distance, the photographer captured this wordless lesson in courage and trust on a surface that fractures earlier each year.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Under Watch
Two polar bear cubs spar under their mother’s steady gaze. This rehearsal in balance, restraint and confidence will be important when the cubs have to travel and hunt without her.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Cradled in Cold
Tucked into the lee of snow on Baffin Island’s sea ice, a mother polar bear curls around her cubs. She has fasted for months, turning stored fat into warmth and protection. From a distant vantage point, the photographer watched rest become refuge and tenderness turn to resilience in a landscape of thinning ice and lengthening uncertainty.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Precarious Pause
A polar bear mother pauses on a steep slope, one cub on her back, the other climbing to join them. A slipping forepaw scored an arc in the snow — a momentary balance of three lives on ground shaped by wind, melt and shorter winters. For the cubs, reading snow like this will guide them as winters shrink.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Into Windlight
A mother polar bear leads her cubs up a wind-scored rise, breath and spindrift streaming as their shadows trail down the slope. After weeks of patiently following at a distance, the photographer witnessed this simple ascent towards hard light and an uncertain horizon. For them, routine; for us, a glimpse of survival in an uncertain future.
© Sunita Mandal, United States, Shortlist, Professional Competition, Wildlife & Nature, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards