Editors Picks from the 2013 Nat Geo Photo Contest

 

Calling all photographers! This is your final chance to enter the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. The grand-prize winner will receive a 10-day National Geographic Expedition to the Galápagos for two aboard the National Geographic Endeavour. The contest ends Sunday, June 30, at 11:59 pm UCT.

The entry fee is $15 (USD) per photo, and there is no limit to the number of submissions per entrant. For details and official contest rules, visit http://on.natgeo.com/16mfbpm.

Judging consists of two rounds of evaluation based on creativity and photographic quality. The second-prize winner will receive a seven-day National Geographic Photography Workshop for one in Santa Fe, N.M.; the third-prize winner will receive a six-day cruise for two on a Maine windjammer schooner. Seven merit prize winners will receive a print of their photo, matted and framed by the National Geographic Imaging Lab, and a $200 gift certificate to B&H Photo.

National Geographic Traveler photo editors will showcase their favorite entries every week at www.nationalgeographic.com/travelerphotocontest. Visitors to the site can view all entries as well as download wallpapers.

The Sifter has already featured some amazing photographs from this year’s contest here and here. Below you will see a final selection of some of the favourite entires to date, as selected by the editors at National Geographic.

 

 

Karijini National Park in WA is one of the largest and most photogenic national parks in Australia. The park is famous for its sheer gorges, waterfalls, sparkling rock pools and cool swimming holes. Karijini is about 275km south of Port Hedland and 100km east of Tom or Paraburdoo. The park is all about exploring serpentine tunnels of marbled rock, clambering over boulders, squeezing through narrow tunnels, inching your way along ledges, paddling through subterranean waterways and descending deep into chasms which have been eroded into the landscape over two billion years.

 

 

During my visit to the Amalfi Coast in Italy I ventured for a day to Sorrento. This gorgeous island had an amazing coastline that I stuck to for the day. Because of a mix-up with ferry dock numbers I missed my ferry and had to wait two hours for the next one. I decided I would head back to town and went down a street I had passed a few times that day. The ground opened up, almost out of nowhere, where this absolute beauty, apparently “Valle dei Mulini”, was which I gazed at and shot for almost the entire period before I left for my next boat. Taken with my Canon 5D Mark III and 24-70mm

 

 

It’s like a dream when you are swimming with harmless jellyfish…

 

 

A fly lands on the head of a vine snake in the Choco of Colombia.

 

 

El dia 04 de Junio del 2011 comenzÛ la ErupciÛn del Cordon Caulle, ubicado en la Region de Los Rios en Chile. Una erupciÛn que duro aproximadamente 12 meses donde los pobladores y animales debieron acostumbrarse a convivir con la caÌda diaria de cenizas, las cuales tambiÈn provocaron problemas en el trafico aÈreo de la zona sur de America. Los primeros dÌas de la ErupciÛn se pudo apreciar desde cientos de kilÛmetros a la redonda explosiones y tormentas elÈctricas provenientes de la expulsiÛn de lava. Esta fotografÌa fue tomada la segunda noche de ErupciÛn desde la localidad de Lago Ranco

 

 

Early morning ascend on the trail of Day 13 on our two week journey of the Lost Coast Trail, May 13th, 2013.

 

 

A lone tree in the Palouse region of Washington glows brilliantly in the sunlight as clouds pass by, isolating it in a band of light. Undulating hills provide depth to the lit scene, captured during the brief growing season where the wheat is a rich shade of green.

 

 

It is a domestic animal of a small boy.

 

 

This picture was taken in Spain (Parque natural “Sierra de Grazalema”). In meadows where cattle during heavy rains, many small gaps are formed. These ponds raised slightly eutrophic freshwater algae. These algae live with herbaceous plants and when the lakes freeze very attractive compositions are created. Here we appreciate frozen bubbles and lines formed on thawing. This occurs when the temperature rises past dawn. I used macro lens because this wild geranium leaf (Erodium sp.) is very small.

 

 

Basalt sea stacks called Reynisdrangar, located under the Reynisfjall mountain, close to Vik i Myrdal in southern Iceland. The legend was that there were three trolls who were pulling a three masted ship to the shore unsuccessfully, but they were caught by the sunlight at dawn and turned them into needles of rock.

 

 

At the foot of the active Volcano Bromo on the Island of Java lies the Hindu Temple Pura Luhur Poten which is often immersed in a soft mist at dusk. On this day Mount Bromo showed unusually strong activity, which lead to an exceptionally high and dense dust cloud.

 

 

Great Smoky Mountains is known for its Synchronous Fireflies during each early summer. This year I spent 3 consecutive nights in early June staying in mountain area trying to capture this phenomenon. I was so lucky to witness a spectacular light show on an actual rainstorm night. I left my camera there for an 1.5 hour exposure. There were tens of thousands of fireflies dancing around using their light to paint the scene in front of me and I was the only audience of their light show. They are amazing artists of Mother Nature.

 

 

The fennec, or desert fox is a canine mammal species of the genus Vulpes, which inhabits the Sahara Desert and Arabia. With its features ears, this is the smallest species of the family Canidae. It is endangered and its main threat is illegal in other countries.