Second Place Winner: “Thunderstorm at False Kiva”. I hiked out to these ruins at night hoping to photograph them with the Milky Way, but instead a thunderstorm rolled through, creating this dramatic image. – Max Seigal. National Geographic Traveler Director of Photography Dan Westergren, one of this year's judges, shares his thoughts on the second place winner: “This photo combines two different scenes into one: the small kiva in a cliff dwelling and the grand vista of Canyonlands National Park across the valley. I really like the two different color palettes – warm inside and purple outside. This two-for-one scene was caused by the lightning storm outside the dwelling, which lit up the landscape like it was a huge electronic flash. Looking at this picture I can imagine what a wonderful sight it must have been for the ancient people who lived here. It doesn't seem too amazing now in our modern world, but might have been mind-blowing for the prehistoric residents”. Location: Utah. (Photo and caption by Max Seigal/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Seals dressed in military uniforms swim during a show marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, at an aquatic park in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russia, May 9, 2015. (Photo by Evgeny Kozyrev/Reuters)

A boy shoots a World War II ages machine gun with blanks at a weapon exhibition during a military show in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, July 10, 2022. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

World War II reenactors gather ahead of the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Normandy region, France, on June 2, 2024. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

An OV-10 Bronco aircraft, decorated with World War One commemoration motifs, flies over Flanders international airport, ahead of the world's first Short Take Off & Landing competition on sand, in Wevelgem, Belgium May 8, 2018. (Photo by Francois Lenoir/Reuters)

This image was taken purely by chance, when Fujioka happened to pass a group of schoolgirls striking a popular social media pose in Hiroshima in 2017. “I didn’t even notice the Atomic Bomb Dome (war memorial) behind them when I photographed this image – the girls probably didn’t either. The past and present of Hiroshima co-exists here, with a river running between”. (Photo by Aya Fujioka)

Lovely is the correct work to describe this beautiful paintings series by David Renshaw from “Ted n’ Doris – A Northern Romance”. “Deep down I always knew what I wanted to do for a living and in my school years I remember my father teaching me some basic elements of drawing and I dreamed of one day becoming an artist. Being only really interested in art I left school and studied Graphic Design, after which I started work at a local art gallery as a picture framer. I continued to paint alongside my job, mainly developing techniques and ideas and in 2005 decided it was time to follow my dreams and dedicate myself to painting full time. I always try to make my work feel atmospheric, and I like to pay particular attention to sky and cloud formations as I consider this element of my work to be extremely important to the mood of the finished painting, whether it be a dramatic sunset or a misty moonlit night.”