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)

American model Emily Ratajkowski attends Game 5 of the NBA Playoffs, New York Knicks v Atlanta Hawks at Madison Square Garden in New York, USA on June 2, 2021. (Photo by Startraks Photo/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Karsten Thielker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning German photographer with The Associated Press who covered human suffering in conflict zones around the globe, has died at the age of 54. Thielker died on October 3 in Berlin of esophageal cancer, his wife Janna Ressel said. Here: A wounded Russian soldier, who has been evacuated with his comrades, weeps in a helicopter on his way out of Grozny on Friday, February 3, 1995, as the fighting in the Chechen capital continues. The massive Russian force that invaded Chechnya has taken very heavy losses against a small but determined guerrilla force. (Photo by Karsten Thielker/AP Photo/File)

A man yells for help minutes after a Serb shell hit a crowded pedestrian walkway in Sarajevo, May 1993. Radovan Karadzic, a 70-year-old former psychiatrist, still in robust health, is the most senior political figure to be convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He was found guilty of 10 out of 11 charges. He was acquitted of a second count of genocide in Bosnian towns. (Photo by Reuters)

A Pelican attempts to take a persons belongings while they are sat in St James' Park, London on Monday, August 11, 2025. Temperatures will soar above 30°C in parts of the UK in the coming days, with another heatwave possible in some areas. (Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images)

Volunteers of a Wild Nature Preservation center release a group of owl chicks from the Toro Mountain in Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, 31 July 2019. (Photo by David Arquimbau Sintes/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

English actress Diana Rigg as “Emma Peel” is tied to a railway track as a miniature train advances on her in a scene from the television series “The Avengers” in 1968. Rigg died at her home in London on 10 September 2020, at the age of 82. (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)

A brushtail possum whose ears and legs have been burnt from recent bushfires sits in a cage before being transported to a wildlife hospital, in Batemans Bay, South of Sydney, Australia, 14 January 2020. (Photo by Steven Saphore/EPA/EFE)