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21 Entries From Nat Geo’s Travel Photographer Of The Year 2017 That’ll Render You Speechless

byRachna Srivastava
11th July 2017
2 minute read
National-Geographic-Travel-Photographer

Every pixel in a picture has a story to tell and it is just something that remains intact in a frame, even after years pass. And, there’s a certain charm about pictures shot well. Those who have a keen eye for beautifully shot pictures, this post is perfect for you.

Each year National Geographic hosts Travel Photographer of the Year Contest. The 2017 leg of the contest is in the process. While the submissions for the contest were closed on June 30, the winners will be announced in the month of August. Teasing us in just the perfect way, handpicked entries have been released and we are simply awed by each shot.

Don’t believe us? Have a dekko.

1. Free Riders by Mauro De Bettio

Taj and Akash they travel every day from station to station with their mother bagging to make a living. Train surfing is not without risk, even if dangerous and illegal, is a common form of transportation in Bangladesh. People have suffered electrocution, severed limbs, falling onto the tracks and colliding with tunnels. However, this can not stop them and jump onto moving trains running away from the police bamboo sticks become daily routine.

 

2. M by Akiomi Kuroda

Portrait of Miho

 

3. Ramadan Prayers by Pradeep Raja

This is shot of women praying inside Istiqlal Mosque,Jakarta which is the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia during the month of Ramadan.

 

4. Bridging Generation by Jobit George

A beautiful photo of a father and son sitting in white traditional attire with beautiful blue sky on the day of Eid al-Fitr in a mosque in New Delhi, India. The photo shows the beautiful bond which these two generation have been building up in a very simple and lovable manner.

 

5. Holy Bath by Yogesh Gupta.

Yamuna river is most polluted when its flow in Delhi, its too muddy and full of filth. Yamuna is second most sacred river after Ganga. People took holy bath in as they feel its very sacred. Numbers of Siberian Sea Gull comes here in winter. They give the place a new dimension for few months.
Here a local man took his daily bath in Yamuna river.

 

6. Lets go back to play Holi by Miguel Salas

Father and sons where getting ready to leave their house again to keep celebrating Holi at the small town of Barsana, India.

 

7. A drive to remember by Manish Mamtani

Aerial view of the Scenic drive and the beautiful Fall colors of New Hampshire. I used a drone to capture the fall colors that cannot be seen from the road.

 

8. The Mirror by Takahiro Bessho

Lake Yogo, called “The lake of Mirror”, sometimes reflects everything in front of you.

 

9. Lonely salt lake by Stas Bartnikas

Aerial shot was taken in Death Valley national park from a small plane

 

10. Powerful cloud by Takashi

Mt Fuji is a treasure trove of mysterious shaped clouds.
Various forms of clouds appear when a fast air current blows over the Mt Fuji.
I stayed in the car during the night at the Inokashira forest road about 0.8 miles above sea level about 25 miles west of Mt Fuji.
The small clouds that appeared before dawn grew bigger and bigger.
Just before sunrise they had become a huge cloud covering Mt. Fuji.
The shadows of them in the backlight were the most powerful masterpieces.

 

11. Moss forest by Tetsuya Hosokawa

Yakushima is an island full of abundant moss and beautiful water

 

12. Vibrant Life on Commercial Street by Nikhil Rasiwasia

“The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here now; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life – Bhagat Singh”. Vibrant street shoppers enjoying their daily lives during Ramadan in Commercial Street, Bangalore.

 

13. Moonlightning by Christopher Markisz

Lightning strikes lower Manhattan as a summer storm approaches a moonlit New York City skyline.

 

14. MotherBoard City by Ho Lam Cheng

Hong Kong is one of the highest population destiny city in the world. This city is full of sky-high buildings yet surrounded by lots of mountains. If you go up to the top, you will see a motherboard like structural design of the whole city. The buildings seem like computer servers, whereas the main roads are the connecting cables of different servers. People are like data, transferring from one side to another side.

 

15. Lantern festival celebration by Hua Zhu

This photo was taken in Jujing, a small ancient village in China. Jujing is known as the roundest village in China. In the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration, the village has traditional dragon dancing activity.

 

16. View on night Frankfurt am Main by Vitaly Pankratov

This spring I was in Frankfurt on vacations. In evening I went through the bridge and my eyes caught the spectacular view of modern night city – tall skyscrapers in the vicinity with old Cathedral.
I used tripod for long shutter speed (about 20s), set the lowest ISO and F11.
After that 2 separate shots (with trams and buildings) were combined in post-production.

 

17. Eye Spy by Mark Seabury

This photograph captures a whale behaviour called ëspy hoppingí, where whales poke their head above the water to take a look around and see whatís happening above the surface.
Itís like these majestic mammals of the sea understand we are watching them and are trying to connect with us in some way. In this shot, I wanted to capture this by showing the whale between two worlds, ours above the surface and its below, at the precise moment when it is about to make that connection.

 

18. SF Sunrise by Clane Gessel

Fog rolls in as the sun comes up in San Francisco

 

19. Wanaka Tree by Linda Cutche

I had heard so much about this famous tree and thought that so many people had photographed it that there was no point in doing so myself. That was until I saw it on this glorious early morning and was drawn to taking my own creation of this.

 

20. Pumping up by Miguel Salas

These Kushti wrestles weren’t shy, they event didnt mind me while I was moving around them in the akhara (gym). Only because they thought that I was a National Geographic Photographer.

 

21. Sunset over Krakow’s main square by Grzegorz Ziemianski

This photo was taken from St. Mary’s Church tower. On that day nothing announced these dramatic colors. Few hours before sunset clouds were dense and low. There was no sun at all and just before the sun started to set magic begun. Firstly surrounding colors turned cold silver and blue. Then a purple haze started to occur on sky. I had to find out what is happening on the sky. Aftre fiveteen minutes of “begging” bugler to let me in he finally agreed and I had my five minutes to take this photo.

What’s the prize at stake, you may wonder. Well, the grand prize is a 10-day trip for two to the Galápagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions. And in each category, there would be three winners — the first place $2,500, second place $750 and third place $500.

The pictures are so stunning, we simply can’t pick our favourite. Can you?

Image Courtesy: National Geographic

All images have been taken after due permission from National Geographic.

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