TITLE: WHEN MAMMOTHS RULED THE EARTH

The climax of over 50 million years of elephant evolution, these Asian super tuskers look positively prehistoric. Because they are.
Indeed, bull Asian elephants can sport ivory very similar in shape and size to their cousins, the mammoths. Tusks can grow so long that they can exceed in length the shoulder height of the elephant!
One of the major challenges faced by Asian elephants today is the loss of genetic diversity by the elimination of big tuskers.
Did you know that the longer the tusks, the healthier the elephant? By analysing elephant dung in Southern India, Professor Raman Sukumar noted that bull elephants with longer tusks had fewer parasites (nematodes).
This series concludes in an open landscape, where the most magnificent Asian super tusker alive makes an entrance. His tusks sweep the ground and their size and shape bring back to life the Southern mammoth, the ancestor of the woolly mammoth. While in the very present, we travel back in time. I can hardly think of an image better encapsulating the essence of elephant beauty.

AUTHOR: George Dian Balan (Belgium)

George Dian Balan is a multi-award winning fine art wildlife photographer, scientist, author, inspirational speaker and world records discoverer, specialised in world record and world class individuals in iconic megafauna species.
He creates timeless images by using an immersive approach, portraying as never seen before giants that have captured our imagination. He pays much attention not only to the subject selection, perspective and composition, but also to body postures. The question he asked himself when embarking on his artistic journey is if a Statue, a Monument were to be raised to a species, what would that look like? 
Dian is the author of the award-winning book The World As It One Was (2020), which combines arresting visuals with solid science. For this endeavour, he selected pictures by 100 photographers from around the world and consulted 30 world class experts. He supports local conservation projects in Africa with proceedings from his book and from fine art prints, including as a two-time contributor to Prints for Wildlife, the world’s most financially successful fundraising of its kind.
He was a member of the jury of the Golden Turtle Photography Awards (2023) and the Jackson Wild Film Festival (2022) and the curator of the exhibition Europe's Wild Heart (Brussels, 2019). He has several personal exhibitions or participated in collective exhibitions around the world.
Dian has 10 years of artistic, scientific and conservation experience working with big-tusked African and Asian elephants. In the process, a total of about 30 different images with big-tusked elephants were awarded or were finalists in prestigious photography competitions such as The European Wildlife Photographer of the Year, MontPhoto, HIPA Diversity, Px3 Paris, MonoVisions, ReFocus Awards, Monochromatic Awards, Fine Art Photography Awards, Nature Photographer of the Year or Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year. In addition, Dian was also a finalist in HIPA COP 28 (2024), First Prize Winner (Montier, 2020), Grand Prize Winner (Untamed, 2018) and a finalist in Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards (2016).
His pictures were published by Nat Geo, BBC Earth, GEO, Wild Planet Photo Magazine, Asian Geographic, Africa Geographic, Cranium, Ancient Origins, Nat'Images and Pachyderm, including several times as covers. Other pictures appeared in books such as Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards and Larger than Tigers.
Dian is an accomplished speaker on biodiversity and environmental issues at events in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, such as: Indian Museum (2024), Friends of Elephants (2023), 19th Elephant Symposium (2023), CC Tanzania (2023), Yukon Beringia (2021), 17th Elephant Symposium (2021), Mammoth India (2021), EMC Africa (2020), WPZ Netherlands (2019), Brussels (2017), Ho Chi Minh City (2012), and a member of the Pleistocene Mammals Society. 
For Dian, a thorough research is key when choosing his photographic subjects or deciphering the megafauna science. This is how he became a world leading expert in big tusked elephants, discovering for the first time in more than 100 years two New world records: the World Record Asian elephant tusk by length, at almost 3.3 m (2023) and thickest Asian elephant tusk, at 58 cm (2023).