2016 should be known as the year of the bird, with feathered, winged creatures dominating various photography awards throughout the year.
There’s a competition for pretty much anything nowadays, but photography awards remain the tried and tested best. For examples, look at the list above.
Where else do we get to gander at so many diverse topics and different worlds, than when the finalists and winners of, say, national photography awards are announced?
This year has been no different. In April, the winners of the seventh annual Audubon Photography Awards were announced, with the focus on various birds throughout the world.
From a collection of almost 7,000 images, to which more than 1,700 participants contributed, a busy image of a bald eagle and a great blue heron kicking off won the top prize.
In July, a more ‘of this time’ competition saw the winner of the ninth ever iPhone Photography awards, with birds again playing a prominent role.
Taking in categories like People, Travel, Landscape, Sunset and more, the variety on show is really something. There are plenty of opportunistic images that regular users could quite easily capture, like that of a skyline out the window of a plane, for example.
The Australian Geographic Nature Photographer awards were up next, with an orange-eyed tree frog captured by Matthew McIntosh taking the prize.
The clever Wiki Loves Monuments then opened up for applicants, with architecture from all over the world featured.
Tim Laman’s iconic shot of an orangutan scaling its way up towards a haul of figs won the 2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, a project run by the UK’s Natural History Museum.
Photomicrography soon followed, with Nikon rewarding some of the smallest images of the year, before 2016 was rounded out with some humour.
A fox face-planting into the snow helped US photographer Angela Bohlke take top prize at the second Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards.
All these awards are listed above. Enjoy!