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The Drone Photo Awards Have Announced Their Winners Of 2022, And Here Are The 30 Best Photos
InterviewSiena Awards just announced the winners of the Drone Photo Awards 2022. For his shot of a fissure that was captured just a few hundred meters from the main crater of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland, French photographer Armand Sarlangue has been chosen the overall winner of the competition.
The judges chose Armand's winning photo from among thousands of entries; this year, 2,624 participants from 116 nations entered the well-known worldwide drone photography contest. The annual Drone Photo Awards is a testament to the greatest camera drones, which are capable of taking beautiful pictures on their own, but the sheer diversity of this year's winning and praised photos demonstrates just how far drone technology has come in the recent years.
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Photo Of The Year, Big Bang By Armand Sarlangue
In the picture, a secondary fissure happening a few hundreds meters from the main crater of Fagradalsfjall volcano, during the very last eruptive phase. It was captured as a storm was hitting west Iceland, with rain and strong winds. Due to the difficult conditions, a drone capture like this is unique.
Bored Panda reached out to the Founder and Art Director Luca Venturi who is in charge of the whole SIENA awards. We were wondering how the overall winner of the competition was picked, and here's what Luca told us, "The overall winner has been chosen by the Judging Panel after 3 rounds of judgment."
Choosing a winner was no easy feat given that the Drone Awards was quite a popular competition among photographers. "We received about 8 thousand images submitted by 2624 participants from 116 countries," Venturi told us.
Category: Wildlife, Commended, Great White Vortex By Clay Folden
A juvenile Great White Shark swimming through bait schools in the shallows off of a beach near Santa Barbara. The swirling trail behind him is called a vortex trail. This 'wake' is created by the oscillating movement of the shark's tail, causing small contrasting vortices, which remain visible due to the suspended sediment in the surrounding water.
Category: Urban, Commended, Beautiful Life - Princess Taiping By Jingkun Yang
After years of efforts, more than 2,000 mu of desertified land has been turned into forest resources. On a slope of the park, which covers an area of nearly 5 mu, the most representative and iconic landscape of the park: the "Princess Taiping", made up of plants of different colors and shapes.
No one can deny that in recent years aerial photography has been on the rise, and the founder of the awards wholeheartedly agrees with the statement as well. "We think that aerial photography is still increasing thanks to the different perspective it is able to show," Venturi said to Bored Panda. The art director also told us a little bit about the main goal of the Drone Photo Awards 2022, "We want to highlight a different photographic genre deliberately separated from being compared to traditional photography."
Category: Nature, Highly Commended, The Other Side Of Sunrise By Larry Gunn
Shiprock is a volcanic plug rising out of the desert on Native American Navajo Tribal Lands. A rock dike also formed from the volcano leads to Shiprock. The early morning light illuminates the formation in the cold morning producing an interesting shadow: it is the coldest part of the night right before sunrise.
Acually the dike goes south. Shiprock is northeast, the other way.
Category: People, Highly Commended, Collecting Bang Grass By Huu Binh Nguyen
A man harvesting Bang grass (Lepironia articulata). Bang grass is the material to produce straws replacing plastic ones to protect our environment. Most of the land in this area is full of alum so that people can not plant any crop plants besides Bang grass.
We think that without any doubt, organizing a competition on this scale must not have been easy, and to prove the said statement, Luca gave us an overall timeline of how long it takes to organize something like that. "We are working hard all year in order to make our competitions huge events and the Siena Awards Festival a powerful celebration of photography. But we are really motivated and enthusiastic in order to reach our purposes. It all comes down to belief.
Working to make Siena the world capital of photography means being a vessel of feelings to create, in the ideal place, strong positive emotions, which are the ones that give joy. Because every human being needs to be moved/feel emotions to feel alive."
Category: Wildlife, 1st Classified, Solidarity By Mehdi Mohebipour
Flamingos sleep together at night for greater security and stay close together during the day, thus protecting each other. In this crowd of bodies the colorful nuances of the plumage and the reflections of the light stand out.
Category: Urban, After Sand Storm By Yura Borschev
In the picture, a basketball court after a sand storm in the United Arab Emirates: the sand is partially covering the field, letting the viewer get a glimpse of its original shapes and colors. It is one of the greatest finds in the author's sport courts collection shot in 2021.
Mother nature always wins. It may take 1,000 years, but she will win.
Given how many photographers from all over the world have participated in the contest, we hoped that Venturi could share a little secret with us as choosing favorites from over 8 thousand pictures must not have been easy for the judges. Bored Panda asked Luca if by any chance the judging team had any personal photos they really liked even if they didn’t make it to the final categories.
"I imagine yes, but we are only able to see the final results with the highest scores of the winning images and we do not have access to other info related to the other shots." Said the founder of the awards.
Category: Urban, 1st Classified, Rooftops Of Kartoffelraekkerne Neighborhood By Serhiy Vovk
Rooftops of Kartoffelraekkerne neighborhood, in Oesterbro. The neighborhood was built in the late 1800s for the working class families. Today, it is one of the most sought for in Copenhagen.
Category: Nature, 1st Classified, Meeting By David Rouge
This picture is the result of a dream come true: the meeting of the desert and the ocean. As the drone climbed higher, the photographer noticed a particular atmosphere, where the light highlighted the delicious shapes of these dunes flowing into the South Atlantic Ocean.
Lastly, we were wondering what kept the whole team motivated and inspired to keep organizing these competitions year after year, and here's what we have been told.
"This is our MISSION: Siena Awards is an independent project that aims to make Siena the world capital of photography. It is a great curator of quality events with a common denominator: the language of photography as a lifelong passion. Siena, a jewel of Italy, is the ideal place to realize this dream, as it has always been a city of art, with unique beauty and the ability to open its heart, its doors, and its creativity. A major international festival, Siena Awards includes three photographic awards of excellence and a series of events and exhibitions throughout the year for photographers all over the world: from the great names, to emerging talents, to enthusiasts, to visitors from around the world who love culture. Siena Awards is the exclusivity that becomes inclusive."
Category: Wedding, 1st Classified, Like A Painted Picture By Krzysztof Krawczyk
The effect of the sun on the water, a felled tree and a brave bride lying on it: a magnificent picture drawn by nature. The surface of the water looks like a starry night sky, while the bride looks seems a dreamy princess.
Category: Urban, Commended, Perfect Chaos By Sara Zanini
Aerial view of Gangi, a village immersed in the Sicilian countryside in the province of Palermo. The image was shot on an early summer morning. The orange houses' rooftops give movement to the image, while the mountain peaks rise in the background.
Category: Abstract, Commended, The Tree By Jose Pesquero Gomez
The aerial view reveals a figurative forest landscape in which a large tree stands out rising from the surface of what appears to be earth but which is actually a mass of water, the protagonist of the shot and responsible for tracing the branches of the tree.
Category: Sports, Runner Up, Once Upon A Wave By Phil De Glanville
Surfer Chris Ross charges down a monstrous wave as it begins to barrel above him. The ocean seems to swallow the athlete, who looks like a small yellow dot in the blue immensity of the wave. Shot at a surf break called The Right in Western Australia.
Category: Nature, Highly Commended, Volcano In The Clouds By Luis Manuel Vilariño Lopez
Thousands of earthquakes shook the Reykjanes peninsula in an orchestrated prelude to an eruption, until at 20:45 on 19 March 2021 the floor of the Geldigadalir valley gave way to the uncontainable magmatic pressure and split open, letting molten rock gush forth in an awe-inspiring spectacle.
Category: Wedding, Commended, Together By Nikita Dukhnik
"Face" was part of the scene, which remained after the music festival held nearby the wedding place was concluded. Since it was a close and pretty unusual setting the photographer decided to use it for the wedding photo album.
Category: Nature, Runner Up, Aftermath Of La Palma’s Volcano Eruption By Enrico Pescantini
The impressive eruption of volcano Cumbre Vieja hit the island of La Palma at the end of 2021. For 3 months the lava river destroyed over 3000 buildings, 90 kilometers of roads and endless hectares of banana plantations, leaving more than 2000 people homeless. The landscape changed completely.
Category: Nature, Highly Commended, Blue Hour In Pamukkale By Dimitar Karanikolov
A top-down photo of the complex geometric patterns of Pamukkale - a natural rock formation of travertine pools in Turkey. The whole palette of blue and light blue shades welcomes the viewer from right to left.
Category: People, 1st Classified, Sleeping On A Boat By Anindita Roy
Dhaka is located on the bank of the famous Buriganga river. Sadarghat river port of Dhaka is the busiest port in Bangladesh, with services to most of the districts in the country. People from both sides of the Buriganga river cross it using small boats. The boat men working on them, usually sleep at night on the boats themselves.
Category: People, Commended, Women Picking Red Chilies By Azim Khan Ronnie
Countless chilli peppers surround labourers in the Bogura district in the north of Bangladesh. Chilli peppers are a major part of the Bengali cuisine popular in Bangladesh and are used as part of a combination of spices for various meat dishes, including chicken and beef.
Category: Urban, Commended, Icesolated By Martin Sanchez
During one of the coldest winters in the United States, a small cabin survives in the middle of a frozen lake in New Hampshire. It is completely isolated from everything in a peaceful setting with nature.
Category: Abstract, 1st Classified, Salt Farm Workers Harvesting By Saurabh Sirohiya
Some laborers at work in a salt pan where they move the salt to form circular lines allowing a slow evaporation under the hot sun. At the end of the day the salt will be collected in baskets: it's a really hard job!
Category: Sports, 1st Classified, Falling Skiers By Daniel Koszela
The photo taken in March 2022 shows the competitors of the annual ski event: Bieg Piastów held in Szklarska Poręba, at its 46th edition. Skiers whiz in their colorful clothing along the track surrounded by snow-covered trees.
Category: Wildlife, Commended, Pink Flight By Kateryna Polishchuk
This is the shore of Lake Syvash in the Kherson region in the south of Ukraine. Part of this lake is pink and offers different abstract composition opportunities. A beautiful white bird is flying over it, guiding the viewer's eye through the picture.
Category: People, Runner Up, Waterlily Harvesting By Shibasish Saha
This image was taken by a drone to show the working time of rural people during the monsoon season in the wetlands of West Bengal. Two workers occupy the scene with their colorful hats and clothes. Waterlilies create two concentric colored rings from which one of the two characters seems to emerge.
Category: Urban, Highly Commended, Crisscrossed By Shuai Wu
Four roads are crisscrossed with traffic flow and speeding vehicles. The moving lights create a spectacular enlightened yellow cross, which leads the viewer's eye throughout the picture. The photo was taken at Jiaozi Interchange, Chengdu, Sichuan.
Category: Urban, Commended, Duotian By Ningtai Yu
Xinghua Qianduo Scenic Area is located in Qianduo Town, which is a globally important agricultural heritage and a four-star rural tourism spot in Jiangsu Province. The scenic spot is famous for its characteristic landscape. Every year, during the Qingming season, the "pallets" surrounded by water are covered with golden rape flowers. This magnificent view attracts many tourists.
Category: Sports, Highly Commended, Circus Bear By Sirvidas Tadas
In this picture, an accidentally captured moment of a BMX rider doing trick: his shadow appears as a circus bear or a monster with small bike. The optical illusion makes the image extremely lovely.
Category: Wildlife, Highly Commended, Siberian Whirlpool By Dipabrata Sur
Every winter, at this very location, thousands of migratory seagulls come from Siberia to India and early in the morning these birds gather at Yamuna Ghat where they are fed bird food by the local people. The photographer is using a slow shutter to gave the event a surreal look.
Category: Wildlife, Highly Commended, Feast By Igor Altuna
This picture was taken in the South Luangwa National Park, Zambia. A dead hippopotamus is being eaten by crocodiles in the Luangwa River. The predators blend in with the muddy water, while the prey stands out with its brighter skin color and catches the viewer's eye.