Every year, National Geographic Traveler magazine holds a photography contest for shutterbugs around the globe to share their best shots. Entries of digital images are made online in one of four categories: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, Sense of Place, or Spontaneous Moments. After reviewing over 18,000 entries, the judges have chosen the winning photos for the 2014 edition of the Traveler Photo Contest.
The winning photograph (above) is titled The Independence Day and was submitted by storm chaser Marko Korošec. The photographer explains that the photo was taken on May 28 of 2013 near Julesburg, Colorado. It captures the storm swirling, but Korošec says that it never formed a tornado. National Geographic Traveler Director of Photography Dan Westergren says that the photo won because it "stopped the judges in our tracks...what makes the picture particularly strong is that except for the cloud, the rest of the scene is quite ordinary. The crazy UFO-looking shape gives the impression that it's going to suck up the landscape like a tablecloth into a vacuum cleaner. The unresolved tension in the image makes me want to look at it over and over."
The magnificence of the natural world and scenes of human tradition and culture are recurring themes in the photos that won top and merit positions in the contest. The photo that took second place was shot by Agnieszka Traczewska and shows a young Orthodox Jewish couple meeting for the second time after their arranged wedding.
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Other great images from the contest include Marc Henauer's photo of a diver in Austria's Green Lake, where the water rises 10 meters in the spring and covers meadows and trails, Sean Hacker Teper's photo of a person on a swing with Ecuador's Mt. Tungurahua erupting in the background, and Evan Cole's photo of a Tuareg guide resting on the tallest dune in the Tadrat region of the Sahara Desert.
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To see more entries from the contest, head to the Nat Geo Traveler Photo Contest homepage.
[via National Geographic Traveler]
