Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

A girl stands with arms outstretched at North Narrabeen on January 27, 2024 in Sydney, Australia. Around 30 indigenous children from Brewarrina, Weilmoringle, and Goodooga in the far North West NSW travelled to Sydney to participate in the program. The initiative is part of the Bush to Beach programme, which now in its 19th year, gives indigenous children a unique opportunity to learn and explore Sydney's beach culture. (Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

A girl looks on next to a damaged car buried in mud in an area heavily affected by torrential rains and flash floods in the village of Kamuchiri, near Mai Mahiu, on April 29, 2024. At least 45 people died when a dam burst its banks near a town in Kenya's Rift Valley, police said on April 29, 2024, as torrential rains and floods battered the country The disaster raises the total death toll over the March-May wet season in Kenya to more than 120 as heavier than usual rainfall pounds East Africa, compounded by the El Nino weather pattern. (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP Photo)

Palestinian barber Ramadan Odwan styles and straightens the hair of a customer with fire at his salon in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip February 2, 2017. In Ramadan Odwan's barbershop in Gaza, hair isn't just blow-dried, it's blowtorch-dried. “People have gone crazy about it, many people are curious to go through the experience and they are not afraid”, he told Reuters. “People here love adventures”. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

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 man uses iron sheet to make noises, as a way of trying to disperse desert locusts that had invaded their farms during the second wave invasion in Kakongo village, in Nuu-Mwingi East, in Kitui, Kenya, 06 February 2021. The second wave invasion of the desert locusts in the country comes at a time where most famers are expecting to harvest their farm produce in the country. (Photo by Daniel Irungu/EPA/EFE)

“When I was 8 years old, my parents paid a smuggler to take me across the Himalayas, a weekslong walk over the mountains from Tibet to India. It was a trek that tens of thousands of other Tibetans have taken since the Dalai Lama fled a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. My parents must have had their reasons to send me here; they must have had the best of intentions. But 18 years later, I still don't know why they did it. They are not political people. They are small farmers who raise barley and a few yak in a rural area not far from Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. I have not seen them since I left...”. – Tsering Topgyal via The Associated Press. (Photo by Tsering Topgyal/AP Photo)

CANADA: Stanley Ferdinand filets large trout he caught in Great Bear Lake in Deline, Northwest Territories, Canada September 8, 2016. (Photo by Pat Kane/Reuters)