The spectacular winners of the 15th annual Smithsonian Photo Contest have just been revealed. After shortlisting 60 finalists from 48,000 submissions, the top seven photographs were selected by a panel of judges from The Smithsonian, while an extra Readers' Choice winner was voted on by the public.
The 2017 Contest comprised entries from 155 countries and territories. Ten finalists were selected for each of the six main categories: Natural World, The American Experience, Travel, People, Altered Images and Mobile.
The overall Grand Prize winning photograph went to Vietnamese photographer Thong Huu for his gorgeous shot of men eating breakfast at a market early in the morning in Northern Vietnam (above). The Reader's Choice winner, receiving the most of a total of 38,000 votes from the general public, was Sara Jacoby's image titled Rare. The photo, shot with a mobile device, captures a little girl with two rare chromosome duplications.
Other amazing winning entries include Oreon Strusinski who took out the best Natural World photograph with a sublime snap of a wave closing in on the shore (above), and Adam Żądło's eerie image of sheep on the stairs of a farm townhouse that won in the best Altered Images category.
Submissions have just opened for the next contest and it's free to enter with a Grand Prize of US$2,500.
Take a look through the gallery to see a selection of the winners and finalists.
Source: The Smithsonian
To New Atlas: Is it possible to have a gallery of preview thumbnails instead of the fill size pictures? The massive galleries are slow to load and navigate...