Meet the Winners of our Travel Photography Competition!

Find out who the judges picked

Aaaaand… here you go – the winners, runners up, and highly commended images of this year’s Travel Photography Competition! As always, we loved seeing where your cameras took you, and choosing a final group wasn’t an easy task. The photos below caught our judges’ attention for the way they tell a story and reflect a strong sense of place, and we’re excited to share them with you.

Hats off to the photographers featured here – it’s well deserved. And extra congrats to the overall winner, who gets to join us on that photo safari to Botswana!

PEOPLE & CULTURES CATEGORY

Category winner and overall winner: ‘Kartika Vrata’ by Tanveer Rohan

Feedback from the judges:
“The angle and composition, make this scene into a beautiful vibrant mosaic of colour where the lights draw the eye through the frame. The rich coloured fabrics and furniture create a huge amount of interest. The angle helps create a viewpoint to appreciate how so many small details can be unified to create a huge visual impact.” – Alan Hewitt

Tanveer Rohan wins a place on our Botswana Photo Safari

Second place: ‘Circles of Life’ by Pranab Basak

Feedback from the judges:
“This photograph has such strong visual clarity, the blue of the water provide a beautiful contrast to the warm tones of the nets and colourful clothing. My eye moves from one person to the next and none dominate making each as interesting as the next. It captures a story of tradition, effort and functional activity. Together, these qualities make the photograph incredibly compelling.” – Alan Hewitt

Pranak Basak wins a camera strap by Vincov. 

WILDLIFE CATEGORY

Category winner: ‘Lioness Eyes Behind Birds’ by Willem Kruger

Feedback from the judges:
“This image works incredibly well because the shallow depth of field is used as a storytelling tool rather than a technical byproduct. The Cape Sparrows are are isolated as they fly toward the camera immediately commanding the attention, while the lioness sits just outside that focal plane. The result is a layered narrative: bird, predator and space all existing within a single frame. The lioness is not the subject in a conventional sense, yet her presence changes everything. Her softness does not weaken the image; it strengthens it, creating the tension which is the story. It’s perfect timing too, or great use of a camera’s burst mode. Fractions of a second sooner or later, the lioness’s eyes would be obstructed by wings or birds and the photograph would lose some of the tension. It’s a wonderful photograph.” – Alan Hewitt

Willem Kruger wins a camera bag by Vincov. 

Second place: ‘Life Hangs by a Thread’ by Xiaoping Lin

Feedback from the judges:
“Good wildlife photography is more than just an excellent photograph of an animal. Excellent wildlife photography captures an extraordinary moment that gives us a glimpse into the world and lives of the wildlife subject itself. In this, Xiaoping’s image is absolutely extraordinary. To see such a scene in and of itself is rare. To be able to photograph it; not just simply record the moment, but actually photograph the moment with skill and creativity is rarer still. Xiaoping’s image of Egret and fish is true astounding.” – Emil von Maltitz

Xiaoping Lin wins a camera strap by Vincov. 

LANDSCAPE CATEGORY

Category winner: ‘Money Tree’ by Xu Zhang

Feedback from the judges:
“Xu’s image immediately jumped out in the judging process. It is a unique viewpoint with an intended double meaning or interpretation in the image itself (as evidenced b the title ‘Money-tree’). The composition is beautifully balanced, lending itself to the double interpretation of the scene, but also incredibly simple at the same time. The orange and blue colour balance is also extremely effective in grabbing the viewers eye initially. Then there is the requisite fine detail in the photograph which invites the viewer to pick out details and look at the scene for longer (I really would love to see this blown up large). It’s a mesmerising image that makes you want to explore it visually. It’s a superb photograph and well deserving of its win.” – Emil von Maltitz

Xu Zhang wins a camera bag by Vincov. 

Second place: ‘Bozzhira’ by Galip Cetiner

Feedback from the judges:
“Galip’s image of Bozzhira is immediately eye-catching. The fantastic colour juxtaposition between orange and blue lends itself really well to increasing the drama to the atmosphere within the image. The range of tones from the dark shadows also increases the drama with the warm light striking the limestone massif in the centre of the image, and drawing the viewer in. The vignetting effect of the dark sides is perhaps a touch strong though. Added to the glowing Orton-like effect (which robs the centre of the frame of some it’s extraordinary detail) and the post-production of the image starts to lean towards being slightly over-edited. It’s an extraordinary scene and the Galip’s beautiful image of it can only make other travellers want to explore this otherworldly landscape themselves.” – Emil von Maltitz

Galip Cetiner wins a camera strap by Vincov. 

HIGHLY COMMENDED

‘Color Contrast’ by Anna Sadowski

‘Crown of Thorns’ by Alia Noordin

‘Jai Ho’ by Sanjoy Bhattacharya

‘Albatros Argument’ by Simon Roberts

‘Here Comes the Sun’ by Frederic Dumortier