Praia du Forte, Bahia. “This was the lead picture for a National Geographic story on Bahia, because it was both mysterious as well as a “geography” picture showing where the slaves arrived from Nigeria. Beach pictures seem like they should be easy to take, but for me they are actually quite difficult. Too easy to fall into cliche. When I saw the kid coming on the horse, I quickly ran to see if I could make something with a woman in a bikini that was not a bikini shot”. (Photo by David Alan Harvey/The Guardian)

“As you can see I love the Icelandic Horse. Born and raised with them, I love to work with them and watch them ... they have unbelievable network of communication and energy I can´t explain with words”. – Gigja Einarsdottir. Photo: “Runners”. (Photo by Gigja Einarsdottir)

“7584 Fish”. On a windy day right after a Cyclone passed the far northern Great Barrier Reef i took some friends out to the reef. Never before i saw that many glass fish on this particular coral “bommie”. Just when i setup my camera, this Napoleon Wrasse swam right through the school of fish building a living frame. Photo location: Cairns, Great Barrier Reef, Flynn Reef, Australia. (Photo and caption by Christian Miller/National Geographic Photo Contest)

Professional conceptual category winner. Greetings from Mars, by Julien Mauve, France. Mauve says: “I have always wondered what it would be like to discover a totally different world ... and to photograph it for the first time as if I was Ansel Adams. So I came up with this project, which is about space exploration and discovery. But it’s also about our behavior in front of landscapes and how we create pictures that will share our personal story with the world”. (Photo by Julien Mauve)

“I was born in Zimbabwe, Africa in 1981 and grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I graduated with a degree in Acting, and after college, worked as an actor and musician for the Santa Fe Shakespeare Festival, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and the California Shakespeare Theater. I have had a lifelong passion for drawing, painting, and sculpture since I first saw Michelangelo's “Head of Leda” in a book in the library”.

“I am not a photo reporter, so I don’t feel obligated to honour every detail. What I’m trying to achieve is to emphasize the whole potential of a shot, creating a sight that I'd like if existed.. And since it’s impossible in real life, I do it in virtual :) My work is maybe more similar to ‘photo-painting’ than photography”. – Katarina Stefanović

Photo: Pannonian spring fantasy. (Photo by by Katarina Stefanović)

A) 1st place WINNER – Roy Rimmer. “This rat was in an outdoor set I made, the set up is two meters long and a meter wide made of Perspex,it has a plywood front with holes cut in for my camera and flash guns, I placed two rusty paint cans in the set up and the rat would leap from one can too the other, I had to use flash to freeze the action”.