China's President Xi Jinping's wife Peng Liyuan, right, and French President Emmanuel Macron's wife Brigitte Macron pose in front of the clock as they visit the Orsay Museum, Monday, May 6, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/AP Photo)

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)

A woman jumps with balloons while she poses for a picture at a park in Kiev, Ukraine May 6, 2018. (Photo by Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

Indian artist Sudarsan Pattnaik works on a sand sculpture depicting drowned Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi at Puri beach, some 65 kilometers away from Bhubaneswar, on September 4, 2015. Charities helping refugees saw a surge in donations on September 4 across Europe as people shocked by the heart-rending images of a drowned Syrian boy on a Turkish beach dug deep to help out. The photos of the lifeless body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, lying on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey, have triggered a wave of emotion across the continent, despite deep divisions among European governments on how to deal with the crisis. (Photo by Asit Kumar/AFP Photo)

A girl looks on at a diver dressed as Santa Claus performing during a promotional event for Christmas in Seoul, South Korea on December 3, 2021. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A robot named “Robovie-II”, developed by Japanese robotics research institution ATR, moves around at a grocery store during a shopping assisting experiment by utilizing the robot in an ubiquitous network technology platform in Kyoto, western Japan January 6, 2010. (Photo by Yuriko Nakao/Reuters)

Romanian singing duo Gabriella and Monica Irimia, The Cheeky Girls prforms in Falkirk, Scotland on May 4, 2003. (Photo by Michael Schofield/News Group Newspapers Ltd)

Single Sports Second Prize. Garrett Gerloff (31) and Sandro Cortese (11) crash in the World Superbike warm-up during the World Championship on Phillip Island, Australia. (Photo by Scott Barbour/AAP Photo/Istanbul Photo Awards 2021)