A viral picture of two widowed penguins staring into the distance and comforting each other has won a prize at Oceanographic magazine’s Ocean Photograph Awards 2020. The beautiful picture clicked by a photographer named Tobias Baumgaertner features two fairy penguins standing side by side upon a rock, overlooking the Melbourne skyline. The picture, exemplifying hope had gone viral earlier this year.

Sharing the story behind it, photographer Tobias Baumgaertne explained the two penguins had apparently lost their respective partners, and had been watching the ‘dancing lights’ of the Melbourne skyline together.

“These two Fairy penguins poised upon a rock overlooking the Melbourne skyline were standing there for hours, flipper in flipper, watching the sparkling lights of the skyline and ocean,” he wrote on Instagram.

According to him, it was a volunteer who revealed that the white penguin was an “elderly lady” who lost her partner and the one to the left was a “younger male”, who lost its partner too.

Tobias explained how he spent 3 full nights with the penguin colony until he was able to get the perfect shot.

“Between not being able or allowed to use any lights and the tiny penguins continuously moving, rubbing their flippers on each other’s backs and cleaning one another, it was really hard to get a shot but i got lucky during one beautiful moment. I hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did,” he wrote.

He re-shared the image along with a video of the penguins when he was shortlisted for the award in November and it was announced as the winner later that month.

After winning the award, Baumgaertner wrote: “It has been an honour to be selected as one of the 5 Images and I cannot express my gratitude towards everyone who has supported me and my penguin image up to this point!”

Check out Tobias’ Instagram page to see his amazing wildlife and nature photos.