Feeling down and out? These photos of the National Geographic’s annual nature photographer of the year contest are sure to get you up and about and excited.
A stunning shot of an orangutan crossing an Indonesia river has been named the winner of a prestigious nature photography award.
The shot, by Singapore photographer Jayaprakash Joghee Bojan, was selected as the winner of the 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year contest. He has won $10,000 and will have his winning image published in an upcoming issue of National Geographic magazine and featured on the @NatGeo Instagram account.
Bojan captured the dramatic image while wading in five feet of water in the Sekoyner River in Tanjung Puting National Park in Borneo. And after being announced as the winner, he said: “Honestly, sometimes you just go blind when things like this happen. You’re so caught up. You really don’t know what’s happening.”
National Geographic was kind enough to let us display the winning images and honourable mentions from the four categories: Wildlife, Landscapes, Aerials, and Underwater.
SEE the entries here
>> Part I
>> Part II
>> Part III
(Click on the photos for full-screen resolution)
A male orangutan peers from behind a tree while crossing a river in Borneo, Indonesia.
Photograph: Jayaprakash Joghee Bojan/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
An adult Caribbean pink flamingo feeds a chick in Yucatán, Mexico. Both parents alternate feeding chicks, at first with a liquid baby food called crop milk, and then with regurgitated food.
Photograph: Alejandro Prieto/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Two grey herons spar as a white-tailed eagle looks on in Hungary.
Photograph: Bence Mate/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
A Japanese macaque indulges in some grooming time on the shores of the famous hot springs.
Photograph: Lance McMillan/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
A great gray owl swoops to kill in a New Hampshire field.
Photograph: Harry Collins/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
In Sydney, Australia, the Pacific Ocean at high tide breaks over a natural rock pool enlarged in the 1930s. Avoiding the crowds at the city’s many beaches, a local swims laps.
Photograph: Todd Kennedy/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Snow-covered metasequoia trees, also called dawn redwoods, interlace over a road in Takashima, Japan.
Photograph: Takahiro Bessho/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
On the flanks of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, the world’s only lava ocean entry spills molten rock into the Pacific Ocean. After erupting in early 2016, the lava flow took about two months to reach the sea, six miles away.
Photograph: Greg C/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Migratory gulls take flight from a cedar tree being washed downstream by a glacial river in British Columbia, Canada.
Photograph: Agathe Bernard/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Green vegetation blooms at the river’s edge, or riparian, zone of a meandering canyon in Utah.
Photograph: David Swindler/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Shortly before twilight in Kalapana, Hawaii, a fragment of the cooled lava tube broke away, leaving the molten rock to fan in a fiery spray for less than half an hour before returning to a steady flow.
Photograph: Karim Iliya/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Sunlight glances off mineral strata of different colors in Dushanzi Grand Canyon, China.
Photograph: Yuhan Liao/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
A summer thunderstorm unleashes lightning on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Photograph: Mike Olbinski/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Morning fog blurs the dead trees of Romania’s LakeCuejdel, a natural reservoir created by landslides.
Photograph: Gheorghe Popa/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Sunset illuminates a lighthouse and rainbow in the Faroe Islands.
Photograph: Wojciech KruczyA„ski/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Blue-filtered strobe lights stimulate fluorescent pigments in the clear tentacles of a tube-dwelling anemone in Hood Canal, Washington.
Photograph: Jim Obester/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Typically a shy species, a Caribbean reef shark investigates a remote-triggered camera in Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen marine protected area.
Photograph: Shane Gross/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Buoyed by the Gulf Stream, a flying fish arcs through the night-dark water five miles off Palm Beach, Florida.
Photograph: Michael Patrick O’Neill/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
Preparing to strike, tarpon cut through a ribbon-like school of scad off the coast of Bonaire in the Caribbean Sea.
Photograph: Jennifer O’Neil/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
A Portuguese man-of-war nears the beach on a summer morning; thousands of these jellyfish wash up on Australia’s eastern coast every year.
Photograph: Matthew Smith/National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2017
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