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)

Men ride on a “mikoshi” or portable shrine as local people carry it into the sea during a festival to wish peace in the ocean and good fortune in the new year in Oiso, west of Tokyo, January 1, 2015. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

People look at smoke and flame rising from the Nevskaya Manufaktura textile factory founded by English merchant J. Thornton in 1841, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Monday, April 12, 2021. The emergencies ministry said the fire had broken out over several floors of the red-brick Nevskaya Manufaktura building on the Oktyabrskaya Embankment of the Neva River. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

Lance Cpl. Blas Trevino of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, shouts out as he is rescued on a medevac helicopter from the U.S. Army's Task Force Lift “Dust Off”, Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment after he got shot in the stomach outside Sangin, in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan on June 11, 2011. The Army's 'Dust Off' crew needed two attempts to get him out, as they were fired upon and took five rounds of bullets into the tail of their aircraft. (Photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP Photo/File)

Moldova's Victor Ciobanu in action with Georgia's Dato Chkhartishvili during the men's 60kg semi final at the World Wrestling Olympic Games Qualifier in Sofia, Bulgaria on May 8, 2021. (Photo by Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)

German model Micaela Schaefer (2nd from Left) and German actor Yvonne Woelke (2nd from right) sighted during Oktoberfest at Theresienwiese on September 21, 2014 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by Chad Buchanan/Getty Images)

Ant Burgess practices his freestyle on a jet ski at Blyth beach in Northumberland, on the North East coast on Saturday, April 10, 2021. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)

Members of the Texas Dancin' Divas take part in the Juneteenth Parade in Galveston, Texas, U.S., June 19, 2021. The United States marked Juneteenth for the first time as a federal holiday commemorating the end of the legal enslavement of Black Americans. (Photo by Adrees Latif/Reuters)