2016 National Geographic Travel Photographer Contest: A Gallery of Entries

A snowstorm transforms a city corner. A cloud formation makes a familiar landscape feel enormous. A quiet scene becomes memorable because a photographer noticed it at exactly the right moment.

The photographs gathered in this older article circulated around the 2016 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year competition. They remain interesting to look at, but the contest is long finished and the gallery should not be mistaken for a list of thirty-five official winners.

Put the competition in its proper year

The old entry deadline and prize invitation applied to 2016. They are no longer presented as an open opportunity. Entries, editorial favourites, finalists and category winners are different descriptions and should not be used interchangeably.

Anthony Lau received the grand prize for Winter Horseman, photographed in Inner Mongolia. Lau’s own account and portfolio place that recognition within his wider photography work. His winning image should not be confused with every photograph featured in a contemporary roundup.

Look at the choices inside a memorable image

Michele Palazzo’s snow-covered New York scene uses a recognisable building and difficult weather together. The city remains identifiable while the storm changes its atmosphere. Ask which details keep the picture grounded and which make it feel unfamiliar.

James Smart’s storm photograph offers another relationship between a landscape and the sky above it. Scale becomes part of the story: the structure of the cloud matters because there is enough of the ground beneath it to help you judge its presence.

These are observations about the selected images, not claims about how each was scored by judges. A viewer can learn from a photograph without inventing a competition result around it.

Keep the maker and the caption together

A photograph’s title, location and author help preserve its meaning as it moves between websites. Retain those details when saving a reference for yourself, and seek the photographer’s own work if you want a print or further context.

Credit is also different from permission to republish. Finding an image in a contest gallery does not make it a freely reusable travel photograph. The available titles and photographer credits identify the work and its maker; a separate licence or permission would be needed to establish the terms for any new use of an image.

Try a small photographic assignment

Choose a place you can visit comfortably and photograph it with one specific intention: show the weather, explain the scale or capture a relationship between people and their surroundings. Make a few considered frames rather than relying on a large number of nearly identical pictures.

Afterwards, choose one and write a factual caption. If the image needs an explanation, give it one; if you do not know something, leave the uncertainty clear.

Find another way to look

Oliver Curtis’s Volte-Face explores what happens when a photographer turns away from the expected landmark. Dave Lane’s Yellowstone images show how a different time of day and photographic method can transform a familiar landscape.

A competition gallery can start that curiosity. The lasting value is learning to notice what makes each image its own.

Entries from 2016, not an announcement of the winners

This gallery was assembled while the 2016 competition was accepting entries. “Best” expresses the publisher’s selection, not the judges’ final ranking, and the old May deadline is no longer an invitation to enter. The distinction matters because a contest gallery and an official results page answer different questions.

The photographs range from Michele Palazzo’s snowy Flatiron scene and James Smart’s storm image to Tugo Cheng’s sea-farming view and Andy Yeung’s Hong Kong geometry. Portraits, wildlife, landscapes and aerial compositions therefore sit beside one another rather than representing a single photographic approach. The image titles and individual credits preserve that variety.

A useful way to read the sequence is to compare how scale is established: a person, boat or building can anchor an expansive scene, while an elevated viewpoint can turn streets or fields into patterns. Those are observations about composition, not evidence that every image used the same equipment or editing method. The credits remain the route back to each photographer’s own work.