Part 2 of the 2013 National Geographic
Traveler Photo Contest [NO.1~46 ]
Jun 1, 2013
The
time to enter the 25th annual National Geographic Traveler Photo
Contest is running short -- entries will be accepted for another few
days, until June 30, 2013. The first prize winner will receive a 10-day
Galapagos expedition for two. National Geographic was once more kind
enough to allow me to share some of the later entries with you here,
gathered from four categories: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, Sense
of Place, and Spontaneous Moments. Photos and captions by the
photographers. |
1. From the 'Sense of Place' category, a couple paddle out for a sunset surf
in the coastal surfing town of Byron Bay, Australia. ( Ming Nomchong)
2. Young monks begin their service very early in life in their studies in the
monastery. This monk was young and energetic and decided to "fly" in his
exuberance for life. Returning from a snorkeling excursion during a trip to the Great Barrier
Reef, wind speed dropped to zero and the ocean became a mirror.
As
the horizon disappeared, only the seaplane, sitting confidently between
the blue elements, provided a sense of space and felt like a link to
the
rest of the world. ( Christian Roth) At the foot of the active Bromo Volcano, 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 a exceptionally high and dense dust cloud. (Tim Jenka) 5. A female Giant Wood Spider (Nephila pilipes) chasing the male. Most of
the female spiders make a meal of the male after mating.
( Chandana Gunasekara) 6. This alert adult male lion assesses the potential threat of a sound in the
distance. (Micky Robinson
7. This photo was taken on a month trip to California. I am from the Channel
Islands, part of the UK so this was an amazing trip for me! Living on a
small island it's crazy to go to a country as big as the U.S.
This was captured on my last day of a four day trip to San Francisco,
I'd visited the Bridge earlier that day but it has a whole other feeling at
night. I wanted to capture the busy movement of the sky passing over a
city that is alive day or night. This was also my first time experimenting
with long exposures - this was a 5 minute exposure. ( Alex Lacey) 8. I had to wait seven years for the perfect weather conditions, also for the
appearance of the bird. Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland. ( Frank Heumann) 9.
The Great Smoky Mountains are known for the 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. ( Cheng Niu) 10. A fly lands on the head of a vine snake in the Choco department of
Colombia. ( Robin Moore) 11. Old Mursi woman by the huts of her village, Marenke, Omo valley, Ethiopia.
( Jorge Fernandez)
12. This picture was taken in Spain - Parque natural "Sierra de Grazalema".
In small meadow ponds live slightly eutrophic freshwater algae.
These algae live with herbaceous plants and when the ponds freeze,
attractive
compositions are created. Here we see frozen bubbles and lines formed
in thawing ice. I used a macro lens because this wild geranium leaf
is very small. ( Andres Miguel Dominguez) 13. Basalt sea stacks called Reynisdrangar, located under the Reynisfjall
mountain, close to Vik i Myrdal in southern Iceland. Legend says 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
into needles of rock. ( Florin Szoke) 14. The eruption of Cordon Caulle began on June 4, 2011, located in the
Region of Los Rios in Chile. For about 12 months, people and animals
became accustomed to living with the daily fall of ash, which also caused
problems in the air traffic in South America. The explosions and lightning
during first days of the eruption could be seen from hundreds of miles
around. This photograph was taken on the second night of eruption from
the town of Lago Ranco. ( Francisco Negroni) 15. This picture was taken from the top of the John Hancock building -
97 stories up - in Chicago, Illinois as fog rolled in from Lake Michigan.
( Bob Gaudet) 16. 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", appeared, which I gazed
at and shot for almost the entire period before I left for my next
boat.
( Keiren Macdonald) 17. After a day of rock climbing in Joshua Tree, my friend asked, "should we
get a jumping photo on that rock over there, naked"?
It was a fair question. (Tom James) 18.
I found these rings in the center of Taipei on a morning stroll with my
son. They were hanging in front of a store where they sell bottled gas.
( Maarten Deurvorst) 19. A lone tree in the Palouse region of Washington state 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.
( Jesse Summers) 20.
It's just past 8am and most are already in for a while. As the sun
rises and reveals Bali's Gunung Agung volcano in the far distance, more
and more
men gather in the sea and paint the horizon with theirsilhouettes as far as the eye can see.
They fish for very small fish and will stand here for many
hours, until well beyond noon, to fill the bags they carry on their hips.
Many of them wear life jackets because they cannot swim. Their hats
come in all sorts and shapes and double as toolkits, with pouches glued
to the inside or outside to keep their gear and cigarettes within easy reach
( Willem Sorm) 21. I went to Nairobi to shoot a film for an NGO. During our shoot at a school
in Mathare slum, I took shelter from the heat and chaos in a school, and
stumbled upon these sleepyheads. I put my camera on my monopod, self-
timer mode, and held it up high. ( Joe Saade) 22. one of the most beautiful places on earth, the scenery of the Na Pali
Coast in Kauai is breathtaking. ( Karen Lejeal) 23. This was taken with my girlfriend while on a trip to see the wild ponies on
Roger Mountain in Virginia. It was a nasty and rainy day while up on the
mountain but it provided for some good dark/epic backgrounds while
shooting the ponies. This one thought I had food and while I was petting
another pony, he came up from behind me and when I turned around this is what I saw. ( John Brasher) 24. A natural ocean swirl taken from a seaplane while trying to photograph the
largest sea turtle I had ever seen, near Whitehaven, Australia.
The sea turtle decided to take an instant nose dive and escaped. (Vincent Archer) 25. Photo taken on a very foggy night at Point Cabrillo, near Mendocino,
California. The old blacksmith building could only be seen when hit by the
light of the lighthouse.( Melissa Loeffler) 26.
A reflection of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in the basin of the
fountain opposite the mosque where the main dome of the mosque appears.
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. ( Dhafer Al shehri ) 27. Snorkeling with a Humpback whale has always been one of my dreams.
When
this whale (approx. 12m long) swam past me I felt it really looked at
me, an amazing unforgettable moment! My mind stopped, time seemed to
stop...
eye to eye with such a majestic and gentle creature. Swimming with
Whales in Tonga is well organized and part of their eco tourism.
I will certainly do this again. ( Conni Weise) 28. Renny Bijoux, youth ambassador from the Seychelles, participating in the
Greenpeace North Pole expedition. The team, most of them without any
previous
polar experience, skied to the North Pole and lowered a capsule 4.3 Km
onto the sea bed, containing signatories to their campaign to
protect the Arctic from industrial development. ( Christian Aslund) 29. After a rainy afternoon at the Grand Canyon, I was gifted with this "Grand"
view wrapped in a beautiful rainbow. ( Cathy Smart) 30. In Chukotka, the easternmost part of Russia and the Eurasian continent,
hunting for marine mammals has always been the basis for survival of the
local people. Most important for getting the every day food is to hunt the
walrus. Even today the hunters are using harpoons thrown by hand.
For a foreigner it was very cumbersome to get to the area, but also a very
interesting travel. ( Uno Johansson) 31. Taken on Maui, Hawaii. Every night at sunset there is a cliff diving
ceremony at Black Rock. (Josh Baker)
32. Iranian Shi'a Muslim men, in trance and covered in mud, mourning during
the Day of Ashura, on which Shi'a Muslims commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn, grandson of Mohammad, and third shi'a imam.
The mud is an important part of the local mourning ritual. Shot in the town of Bijar, Iran. ( Guido Dingemans) 33. I was in Iceland driving to another destination when I came across this
abandoned stone structure.
Even though the roof was gone, the walls appeared determined to hold
strong. ( Adrian Fiorino) 34. I was pleased and amazed to see this scene from Tokyo's new landmark
[Sky Tree].
From the observation deck, we can see all of Tokyo but through new
perspective. I've tried finding the best portion of night view and found this
part of scene which contains Smida River, Ara River, various bridges,
Gulf of Tokyo, and Rainbow bridge. ( Yoshiki Nakamura) 35. A small island of happiness, off Miami Beach, Florida. Sorry, I do not have
the map. ( Joao Santos) 36. An inexplicably curious sight alongInterstate 90 as it passes through Crow Agency, Montana.
A casino sign erected next to a church marks the town's main attraction
for passers-by. Although this photo was taken in 2011, the sign and
church are still standing - there's been an addition to the sign, while the
church
remains the same. It's easy to drive through southern Montana without
thinking twice about your surroundings, but even when traveling 75 mph
it's hard to ignore two modern structures representative of America's
history and settlement. ( Christine Tharp) 37. In the rainy season, insects are in abundance in the Kalahari desert.
Outside my tent is a big light that attracts lots of bugs. The Bibron's
geckos take advantage and perch themselves anywhere close to the light-
source and have a feast. The glow from what remains of my fire. ( Hannes Lochner) 38. A Black rhino and two plains zebra under an overcast sky on the plains of
Laikipia, Kenya. ( Robin Moore) 39. Its like a dream when you are swimming with harmless jellyfish,
in Palau. ( CheanChong Lim)
40.
While hiking in Badlands National park, we got to this very soft ground
trail, the narrower it gets, the easier it broke down.
I decided that I wanted to stop at this point but my husband wanted to go
further.
He did and fell down not too far from where he stands in this photo.
He moved quick and got back on his feet. He is looking at the spot where
he would have fallen. ( Jane Speleers) 41. Without knowing, we were waiting for one of our glorious moments --
she was waiting for her breakfast and I for one of my best pictures to be
taken. ( Leopoldo Islas Flores) 42. My first time in Africa and this giraffe on the horizon, contrasted against
the burnt orange sky, was the exact image I had in my minds eye of what
I was hoping it would look like. ( Dave Young) 43. Shot of an abandoned subway platform in Stockholm, Sweden. ( Valentijn Tempels)
44. The eruption of old faithful geyser at night. ( Yang Li)
45.
In the dune-veld of the Kalahari desert, Eland antelope can get really
weak from malnourishment. This is good news to the lions of this area.
The eland hang around waterholes and are easy prey. ( Hannes Lochner) 46. Sea Sky. I was on top of a mountain on the island of Capri, and shot this
photo while looking down at the sea below. ( Diako Mardanbeigi)