See the breathtaking photoshop-free winning images from this year’s Natural Landscape Awards

The photograph shows the shadow cast by some peaks on the surface of the Lowell Glacier, in Kluane National Park, Yukon Territory, Canada. It was taken on a July morning in 2022 from a Cessna 172 as part of a decades-long project on glaciers. With climate change the Lowell Glacier, like most glaciers in the world, is crumbling into ruin, its surface gradually disappearing beneath dirt and rubble as the ice melts. The image is intended to suggest the wave of destruction that will overwhelm us unless we stop dumping carbon into the atmosphere.

When I decided to visit the volcanic site on the Reykjanes Peninsula, I was uncertain how it would be and how dangerous it was. Luckily we had good conditions and good filters to protect our lungs. The Image called “Ardor” is one of my favorite images from the volcanic series because of the small fragment of this huge area. The blue hour threw ambient blue light on the background layers, with the orange lava standing out even more. The 1,100°C hot liquid earth is frozen in time. Even though my distance from the erupting volcano was about 500 Meters, I could feel the radiating heat with every outbreak.

For this backpacking trip in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, one of the photographs I was hoping for was of these mountains reflecting in a calm alpine lake. After hiking 11 miles and climbing close to 5000 feet, I reached the top and realized the chances of capturing that were slim. We were engulfed in fog, couldn’t see anything around us, and there was too much wind. Throughout the evening and entire night, these mountains were hidden and no pictures were taken however during sunrise the clouds finally began to part, revealing these impressive peaks. I decided not to walk down to the lake but instead focus on these two mountains that really commanded the scene and my attention. The conditions were magical but quickly fleeting. Despite this being nothing I originally anticipated, I couldn’t have been happier photographing this scene out in the backcountry.

When I first saw this scene, the warm, earthy tones of the riverbed reminded me of 19th-century landscape paintings. Even the fierce rapids of the Yellowstone River felt like gentle brushstrokes when viewed from afar.
I knew that I could play with scale and perspective when I composed this photo, as the trees appeared to stand against a cloudy sky rather than a swirling river. It can be a difficult photograph to parse without a second look.
This photo breaks many of the supposed ‘rules’ of landscape photography. It uses midday sunshine rather than Golden Hour light. The main subjects—the spindly trees along the riverbank—are at the bottom of the frame near the corner. And, to take the photo, I pointed straight downward from the edge of a canyon, not forward at a classic scene.
These unusual factors, though, are what give the photo its personality. I’ve always loved searching for offbeat, intimate views of nature like this wherever I go. It can be the best way to tell the story of a landscape.

This photo, “Ocean Deity”, means so much to me. It was a gift. And she has a deeper meaning… if you look closely, her eyes have been “sewn shut” by tire tracks. More than 6,000 marine turtles live in Gutharraguda/Shark Bay, including the globally endangered green turtle (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta). When people drive along the beach in 4WDs, they put the lives of turtles at risk, as this is where they nest.

Each year the level of the water in the Dead Sea falls and new salt layers form on newly exposed banks.

Embers flay as a tree burns from the inside out. I would frequently visit it and photograph it over the two weeks before it eventually collapsed in on itself into a fiery grave.

A morning mist at sunrise on Holme Fell in the Lake District was so colorful it detracted from the shapes of the trees. Converted to black and white, the form of the subject was revealed.

I stood on the Baltoro Glacier in Northern Pakistan at the foot of legendary 8000-meter mountains like Gasherbrum IV (7925m), Broad Peak (8051m), and none other than K2 (8611m). Full winter had set in and everything was white and blue. It was -20C. Cold, windless, lifeless. The mountain seemed to roar in silence.

Steam rising off layers of badlands after a day of non-stop rain followed by bright sunshine in Death Valley National Park.

It was an uncharacteristically clear and still night for a region known for some of the most inclement weather in Australia. That didn’t stop me from shivering in enough insulation to make the Michelin man jealous. Unlike me, the pandani leaves managed to stay almost completely still for the entire 8 minutes of foreground exposure. It really was eerily calm on the ridge. Below the amphitheater of pandani, an alpine lake is nestled amongst rugged quartzite peaks.
Above the peaks, the galactic core rises and the violet light emissions from the Carina Nebula can be seen at its peak. The night sky is swathed in airglow – a natural phenomenon where atmospheric oxygen atoms release green light. The small and large Magellanic Clouds feature in the top right of the frame and below on the horizon the Aurora Australis dances.
While I was giving some attention southward for potential aurora activity, it was only months later when viewing on a desktop that I realized the aurora had made an appearance just before midnight. Maybe it was hidden by the airglow or maybe it was my frosted glasses or fatigue. Regardless I was pleasantly surprised that I had rather luckily captured so many features of the night sky. You could say the stars aligned.

The tree is seen as a sacred symbol, which carries significant meanings in both religious and spiritual philosophies. From above the surrounding sheep tracks combined with the fallen tree reminded me of the Tree of Life. While the aerial perspective focuses on the earth, you can see the pooled water in the sheep tracks reflects the blue of the sky. While this represents many different things, for me it communicates the interconnection of all things, beginnings, and endings, the cycling of life.

The last gasp of a short-lived winter in the Scottish highlands let me photograph these coniferous Scots Pine trees. A short while later, the snow had melted and the Highlands had an unexpected early heatwave.

The Great Wave. A stormy sea rises above the viewer and descends into a gargantuan waterfall of water and foam.