The Winning Photos of Nat Geo Nature Photographer of the Year 2017

Michael Zhang

National Geographic has announced the winning photos of its prestigious 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year contest. The grand prize winner, selected from over 11,000 entries, is the photo above by Jayaprakash Joghee Bojan showing a male orangutan peering from behind a tree while crossing a river in Borneo, Indonesia.

Here’s Bojan’s description of the photo, titled “Face to face in a river in Borneo,” which was also 1st place in the Wildlife category:

While looking for wild orangutans in Tanjung putting national park, Indonesia, we witnessed this amazing sight of this huge male crossing a river despite the fact there were crocodiles in the river. Rapid palm oil farming has depleted their habitat and when pushed to the edge these intelligent creatures have learned to adapt to the changing landscape, This is proof considering orang-utans hate water and never venture into a river. I got into the 5 feet deep river to get this perspective.

Here are the other winning photos across all categories:

Aerials

1st Place

Photograph by Todd Kennedy, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. In Sydney, Australia, the Pacific Ocean at high tide breaks over a natural rock pool enlarged in the 1930s. Avoiding the crowds at the city’s many beaches, a local swims laps.

2nd Place

Photograph by Takahiro Bessho, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Snow-covered metasequoia trees, also called dawn redwoods, interlace over a road in Takashima, Japan.

3rd Place

Photograph by Greg C., 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. On the flanks of Kilauea Volcano, Hawai’i, the world’s only lava ocean entry spills molten rock into the Pacific Ocean. After erupting in early 2016,the lava flow took about two months to reach the sea, six miles away.

Honorable Mention

Photograph by Agathe Bernard, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year Migratory gulls take flight from a cedar tree being washed downstream by a glacial river inBritish Columbia, Canada.

People’s Choice

Photograph by David Swindler, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year Green vegetation blooms at the river’s edge, or riparian, zone of a meandering canyon in Utah.

Landscapes

1st Place

Photograph by Karim Iliya, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Shortly before twilight in Kalapana, Hawai’i, a fragment of the cooled lava tube broke away, leaving the molten rock to fan in a fiery spray for less than half an hour before returning to a steady flow.

2nd Place

Photograph by Yuhan Liao, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Sunlight glances off mineral strata of different colors in Dushanzi Grand Canyon, China.

3rd Place

Photograph by Mike Olbinski Photography, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. A summer thunderstorm unleashes lightning on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Honorable Mention

Photograph by Gheorghe Popa, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Morning fog blurs the dead trees of Romania’s Lake Cuejdel, a natural reservoir created by landslides.

People’s Choice

Photograph by Wojciech Kruczyński, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Sunset illuminates a lighthouse and rainbow in the Faroe Islands.

Underwater

1st Place

Photograph by Jim Obester, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Blue-filtered strobe lights stimulate fluorescent pigments in the clear tentacles of a tube-dwelling anemone in Hood Canal, Washington.

 
2nd Place

Photograph by Shane Gross, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Typically a shy species, a Caribbean reef shark investigates a remote-triggered camera in Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen marine protected area.

3rd Place

Photograph by Michael Patrick O’Neill, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Buoyed by the Gulf Stream, a flying fish arcs through the night-dark water five miles off Palm Beach, Florida.

Honorable Mention

Photograph by Jennifer O’Neil, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Preparing to strike, tarpon cut through a ribbon-like school of scad off the coast of Bonaire in the Caribbean Sea.

People’s Choice

Photograph by Matthew Smith, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. A Portuguese man-of-war nears the beach on a summer morning; thousands of these jellyfish wash up on Australia’s eastern coast every year.

Wildlife

2nd Place

Photograph by Alejandro Prieto, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. An adult Caribbean pink flamingo feeds a chick in Yucatán, Mexico. Both parents alternate feeding chicks, at first with a liquid baby food called crop milk, and then with regurgitated food.

3rd Place

Photograph by Bence Mate, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. Two grey herons spar as a white-tailed eagle looks on in Hungary.

Honorable Mention

Photograph by Lance McMillan, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. A Japanese macaque indulges in some grooming time on the shores of the famous hot springs.

People’s Choice

Photograph by Harry Collins, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. A great gray owl swoops to kill in a New Hampshire field.
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