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Photography

Spectacular wasteland of recalled cars takes out the 2018 Nat Geo Photo Contest

By Rich Haridy
December 12, 2018
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Grand Prize Winner. Thousands of Volkswagen and Audi cars sit idle in the middle of California’s Mojave Desert
Photograph and caption by Jassen Todorov / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
Grand Prize Winner. Thousands of Volkswagen and Audi cars sit idle in the middle of California’s Mojave Desert
Photograph and caption by Jassen Todorov / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
2nd Place - Places. A rusting Ford Thunderbird is blanketed by red dust from a supercell thunderstorm in Ralls, Texas. The dry, plowed fields of the Texas Panhandle made easy prey for the storm, which had winds over 90 miles an hour ripping up the topsoil and depositing it farther south. I was forecasting and positioning a team of videographers and photographers on a storm chase in Tornado Alley—this was our last day of a very successful chase, having witnessed 16 tornadoes over 10 days. The target area for a storm initiation was just south of Amarillo, Texas. Once the storm became a supercell, it moved southbound with outflow winds that were easily strong enough to tear up the topsoil and send it into the air.
Photograph and caption by Nicholas Moir / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
3rd Place - Places. While on assignment for Der Spiegel, we made a road trip through Syria to document the current situation in major cities. When I first entered the Khalidiya district in Homs, I was shocked. I hadn’t seen such large-scale destruction before, and I had been to many destroyed cities. The area around the Khalidiya district was extremely quiet. No city sounds, cars—nothing. Only the chirping of swallows and the wind. We walked down the streets of Khalidiya, but the destruction was so large scale that you couldn’t have the big picture from the point of view on the street—you could only manage it with a view from above. To make this image, I asked a Syrian soldier in charge of the area if I could climb onto a ruin. The soldier agreed, allowing me to climb at my own risk. I climbed up the ruins of a former house—which was full of improvised explosive devices—and took the picture. I was very lucky to take the picture when I was on the rooftop. Without any sign of life, it would have been a dead picture. I can recall the memory vividly.
Photograph and caption by Christian Werner / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
Honorable Mention - Places. Japan’s Blue Pond in Biei-cho, Hokkaido, has become very famous for attracting tourists from around the world. It is surrounded by beautiful mountains and trees. This pond, frozen during winter, was artificially made to prevent river contamination from the nearby active volcano, Mount Tokachi. The accumulated pond water contains high levels of minerals, such as those containing aluminum. The alluring view of the blue pond can take one’s breath away. To make this image, I made the exposure longer to capture the way the snow was falling. At the same time, I lit up the strobe for a moment to capture the snowflakes that are reflecting in the foreground. I took as many photos as I could and chose the one I thought had the best balance of the falling snow and the unfocused snowflakes. I wanted to express how time is created in just one moment and, by tying together these moments, history is made
Photograph and caption by Rucca Y Ito / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
1st Place - Wildlife. It was early morning when I saw the wildebeests crossing Tanzania’s Mara River. The layering of dust, shade, and sun over the chaos of wildebeests kicking up water gives this picture a sense of mystique and allure. It’s almost like an old painting—I’m still compelled to search the detail of the image to absorb the unreal scene
Photograph and caption by Pim Volkers / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
2nd Place - Wildlife. A few miles from Qaanaaq (Thule), Greenland, I was on a hike in search of musk oxen when I came upon a group of them. This ox was running on a hillside in deep snow, which exploded underneath it—an amazing sight. The photo came together in a few seconds. I was lucky enough to be at the right spot to observe them frolicking, and then I had the incredible experience of watching them closely for about an hour. I love photographing musk oxen against the wintry landscape: They’re extremely tough Arctic survivors. This photo shows their beauty and their power—and the snow they deal with for about eight months of the year
Photograph and caption by Jonas Beyer / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
3rd Place - Wildlife. As the late-night hours ticked by and my eyelids grew heavy, two southern white rhinoceroses appeared silently from the shadows to drink from a watering hole in South Africa’s Zimanga Game Reserve. On alert, they stood back to back, observing their surroundings before lowering  their heads. I felt privileged to share this moment with these endangered animals.  While I was well prepared technically, with my camera set correctly on a tripod, I underestimated the emotional impact the magnificent beasts would have on me. I had photographed them months earlier, and now both rhinos sported a new look: They had been dehorned to deter poachers. I had heard about this development but had not yet seen them. I was full of emotion—and horror—that poaching had such a devastating effect. It must have been a hard decision to dehorn their rhinos, and I am grateful for the reserve’s efforts.
Photograph and caption by Alison Langevad / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
1st Place - People. I was looking to do a series of portraits showing people wearing their Sunday best when I made this photo of David Muyochokera. It was taken on his last Sunday working as a photographer at Weekend Studio, in Kibera—a large shantytown in Nairobi, Kenya. My friend Peter, a local resident, had pointed me to the photo studio just as I was about to leave the area. It was a stunning space, with whimsical backdrops and natural light coming through the doorway. David had worked there for 37 years, but Weekend Studio was about to close permanently. Phone cameras were so common now, he said, and fewer people wanted studio portraits. David planned to retire and return home to the countryside. I  was troubled by the studio’s imminent closure, so I eventually took over the rent. A portrait of David now hangs at Weekend Studio in his memory.
Photograph and caption by Mia Collis / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
2nd Place - People. On a family holiday driving from Sydney to Uluru, we stopped at a roadside motel in the small rural township of Nyngan, on the edge of Australia’s outback. The area is in the wheat belt, and it was unusually hot for that time of year—over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and very dusty. Our daughter, Genie, is seen here enjoying a refreshing bath in a rubber ducky perched on the sink.
Photograph and caption by Todd Kennedy / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
3rd Place - People. A Hindu devotee kisses his newborn baby during the Charak Puja festival in West Bengal, India. Traditional practice calls for the devotee to be pierced with a hook and sometimes swung from a rope. This painful sacrifice is enacted to save their children from anxiety. While covering the festival, I was able to view the religious practice from the perspective of Hindu devotees. I tried to capture the moment of love and bonding between a father and his child—and show a father’s concern for his little son.
Photograph and caption by Avishek Das / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest
View gallery - 10 images

The winner of this year's National Geographic Photo Contest is a breathtaking image of thousands of Volkswagen and Audi cars recalled after the emissions scandal and now sitting idle in the middle of the Californian desert. The winning photograph, selected from almost 10,000 entries, is just one of several incredible images awarded in this strong annual competition.

The National Geographic contest spans three general categories: People, Places and Wildlife. Most of this year's winning entries sit comfortably on the precipice between journalistic story-telling and pure aesthetic spectacle.

2nd Place - Places. A rusting Ford Thunderbird is blanketed by red dust from a supercell thunderstorm in Ralls, Texas. The dry, plowed fields of the Texas Panhandle made easy prey for the storm, which had winds over 90 miles an hour ripping up the topsoil and depositing it farther south. I was forecasting and positioning a team of videographers and photographers on a storm chase in Tornado Alley—this was our last day of a very successful chase, having witnessed 16 tornadoes over 10 days. The target area for a storm initiation was just south of Amarillo, Texas. Once the storm became a supercell, it moved southbound with outflow winds that were easily strong enough to tear up the topsoil and send it into the air.
Photograph and caption by Nicholas Moir / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest

Jassen Todorov, the photographer behind the grand-prize winning image, is actually a concert violinist by trade. After reading the news about Volkswagen's massive car recall of the past few years he took to the skies to scope out one of the company's huge storage lots in the California Mojave Desert. This is just one of 37 similar storage lots established by the company to house the millions of cars recalled in the emissions scandal.

1st Place - Wildlife. It was early morning when I saw the wildebeests crossing Tanzania’s Mara River. The layering of dust, shade, and sun over the chaos of wildebeests kicking up water gives this picture a sense of mystique and allure. It’s almost like an old painting—I’m still compelled to search the detail of the image to absorb the unreal scene
Photograph and caption by Pim Volkers / 2018 National Geographic Photo Contest

Other remarkable winning images in the contest this year include a truly surreal shot of two wildebeests that looks almost like a 19th century oil painting, an otherworldly portrait of a famous pond in Japan, and a hauntingly apocalyptic snap of a red dust storm in Texas.

Take a look through our gallery to see all the winning photographs from this year's spectacular competition.

Source: National Geographic

View gallery - 10 images

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Rich Haridy
Rich has written for a number of online and print publications over the last decade while also acting as film critic for several radio broadcasters and podcasts. His interests focus on psychedelic science, new media, and science oddities. Rich completed his Masters degree in the Arts back in 2013 before joining New Atlas in 2016.
5 comments
guzmanchinky
These are amazing photographs... All those wasted cars, did recalling them and destroying them do anything positive for the environment? I just don't see how...
Username
There needs to be a separate story/investigation of these cars. What a colossal waste of resources.
Don Duncan
guz.: My thoughts also. Shipping them to a third world country where they could save lives seems logical.
Daishi
I agree with @guzmanchinky. They don't have a right to lie about the efficiency of the vehicles but as long as the efficiency is fully disclosed I don't see the benefit to the environment to wasting that many working vehicles. Selling them in China at a discounted rate wouldn't be a terrible idea.
Josh!
@guz: That's kind of the whole point. When you have something that spews up to 40X the allowed federal NOx levels, you don't want them running because that's no-bueno for the environment (or your health).
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