The Smithsonian magazine declared its 2016 grand prize winner for photo of the year: an incredible shot Mount Sinabung. This year's competition was filled with amazing shots that reveal the beauty and diversity of the world.
Photography used to be an esoteric field. You’d be pretty lucky if you could wrangle one of the handful of professional photographers in the world to take your portrait over the course of several painstaking hours.
Now, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of photos are uploaded on social media every day. Amid this daily avalanche, it might seem that quantity would overwhelm quality and talent would get flattened. But a good photo is still a good photo.
A good photo still has the ability to transfix and delight its audience, bring awareness to important causes and actually change the world. At its highest levels, photography is a difficult art form. Good photographers should still get recognized and rewarded for their skill.
Recently, the Smithsonian magazine sifted through more than 46,000 photos from people in 168 countries to select winners for its 13th annual photography competition. As expected, the results capture so many aspects of life. There are quiet moments of reflection, stylized and staged scenes, natural events, urban crowds, animals, commentaries on identity and much more.
Although the subject matter ranges widely, the winning entries are all similar in how intentional they are. These are not hastily snapped photos, taken by thumbs slipping over a smartphone’s enter button. These are expertly framed shots, the elements measured and cast in purposeful ways. The meanings vary, but the composition is deliberate. This ability to envision and render all the parts of a photograph is how these photographers beat out such an immense field.
Here are some of the top photos from this year’s contest.
Grand Prize | Remaining on the Slopes of Mount Sinabung | Albert Ivan Damanik
"Volcanic material flows from Mount Sinabung, as seen from the village of Jeraya, North Sumatra, Indonesia on June 26, 2015. Mount Sinabung intermittently spewed burning ash and gas a week after authorities told residents to evacuate the danger zone that lay with within a radius of seven kilometers (4.4 miles) from the crater."
Reader's Choice | Orient Express | Alice van Kempen
"My bull terrier Claire photographed in an abandoned train, one of a series that I am currently working on. The series is called "Leave Only Pawprints: Urbex Adventures With My Bull Terrier Claire."
The American Experience | Trucker Chapel | Lauren Pond
"Truck driver Ben Blackburn, 46, participates in a Bible study session at the Transport For Christ (TFC) mobile chapel in Lodi, Ohio, on October 23, 2013. TFC chaplains helped Blackburn enroll in trucking school after he lost his job during the recent economic recession.
Transport For Christ, an international trucker ministry, has placed 45 mobile chapels at truck stops across the United States. The chapels offer Bible study, worship services and counseling from volunteer chaplains. They also give drivers a break from the struggles and solitude of life on the road."
Travel | Women's Compartment of a Suburban Train | Tamina-Florentine Zuch
"Every day millions of people make use of the suburban trains in Mumbai. Almost every train has separate compartments for women to avoid sexual abuse."
Natural World | A Little Monkey on a Cliff | Hidetoshi Ogata
"A cold front hit the Nagano prefecture. I saw a little monkey enduring the cold in Jigokudani Monkey Park. This little monkey is really cute."
Sustainable Travel | My Time | Hidetoshi Ogata
"In February and March of 2014, I took a month off and went to work as a photographer/videographer in an orphan school in Likoni, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Mombasa, Kenya. My videos and pictures helped raise money to finish the building of the school for 150 children and a sleeping building for 30 orphan kids. This is the school director's daughter on her break, while at school.
"I took one month off because it was my time to give back again. It was my second volunteering project, after a month in Peru working with local knitters the year before. I used my photos and videos to promote their cause on [the organization’s] website and Facebook page, which I was taking care of. The main goal at that particular moment was to gather enough means to finish the new buildings, which would be able to accommodate their needs.
"My experience was great, they are amazing people and took me as a part of the family and community. We still keep in touch, and I am proud I was able to help out. When you travel sustainably, you find a place that gives you something, that makes you whole. But you also feel more than happy to give back. Both the place and you need a change. It is your job to find a way to make it work in unison. Usually, it is not you that is making the big change in the place though, it is the other way around."
People | Lay Off | Benedetta Ristori
"This picture was taken in Kyoto, Japan in January 2015. There is no fiction, the photo was caught while I was wandering in the streets of Kyoto. My intent was to capture the life of night workers. Shift work, even at night and on holidays, often affects workers psychophysically. The requirements imposed by the “society of work” do not recognize the natural alternations of day and night and workers' biological clocks."
Altered Images | Synchronous Fireflies | Radim Schreiber
"I took this photo of fireflies (lightning bugs) in almost complete darkness using the latest low-light camera technology. I was completely surrounded by the fireflies and witnessed one of the most amazing and magical natural phenomena: fireflies that synchronize. Alteration note: I took several long exposures over several minutes and merged them together to preserve detail and clarity."
Mobile | The Red China | Jian Wang
"In front of this Chinese red wall walks a lady in a red dress."
Art can disrupt preconceptions, challenge people to think in new ways and broaden cultures. To do all this, art has to be captivating. The winners of this year's Smithsonian Photography Contest are successful on many levels and they're just a pleasure to look at.
If you're interested in viewing more photos from this year's contest, go here.