A flock of geese flying over snowy lands: from Norway the overall winning shot of the Drone Awards 2021


Overall winner of the Drone Awards 2021 is the Norwegian photographer's shot of a flock of thousands of geese in flight. All the other winners also unveiled.

A flock of thousands of pink-footedgeese flying over still snowy terrain: this is the overall winning shot of the Drone Awards 2021, the leading international competition dedicated to aerial photography. Author of the winning image, titled Pink-Footed Geese Meeting the Winter, is Norwegian photographer Terje Kolaas. The photo comes from central Norway and depicts geese flying in the direction of Svalbard in the Arctic, still covered in snow due to the birds’ early arrival, probably due to climate change.

Selected from tens of thousands of images submitted by photographers from 102 countries, the photo will be featured in the Above Us Only Sky exhibition, scheduled to be shown in Siena from Oct. 23 to Dec. 5 at the Siena Awards festival.



The winners of the Drone Awards 2021

First prize in the Urban category was won by the photo entitled Metaphorical Statement About City and Winter by Sergei Poletaev of Russia: it depicts an old monastery near Moscow with a large power plant in the background. Oman photographer Qasim Al Farsi, on the other hand, won the Wildlife category with Back to Adventure, an aerial shot depicting a green turtle ready to return to the water after laying its eggs on the Oman coast between Ras Al Jinz and the Rashad Turtle Reserve. Australian Phil De Glanville’s photo Gold at the End of the Rainbow, which depicts a rainbow above surfer Ollie Henry struggling with a scary wave, is first in the Sport category.

First in the People category is the photo Fishing in Mangrove Forest by Vietnamese photographer Trung Pham Huy: it depicts a fisherman starting his working day in winter in the mangrove forest of Tam Giang lagoon, among thousands of bare, completely white branches. First place in the Nature category goes to U.S. photographer Martin Sanchez with Extragalactic: taken in Iceland, the image captures the extraordinary moments of a volcano eruption from above, offering a unique view of the crater’s interior.

It is an image depicting many small canals full of poison that takes first place in the Abstract category: titled Poisoned River, it was taken by Romanian photographer Gheorghe Popa and comes from Transylvania in Romania, to depict, in an abstract and personal way, the natural disaster caused by chemical waste generated by copper and gold mining in the Apuseni Mountains. From the Tuscan coast, at a late summer sunset in Marina di Pisa, Italian photographer Matteo Originale’s shot entitled Toward Infinity Together with You, winner of the Wedding category. Pakistani-American photographer Adrees Latif, finally, wins in the Storyboard category with Blanketed in Fire Retardant. A sequence of apocalyptic images depicting the city of Talent, Oregon, completely covered in a red fire retardant chemical thrown from firefighting planes in an attempt to save the city from fire.

Finally, the winner of the Video category is Nestoras Kechagias of Greece with the film Ice Ballet.

More info can be found at festival.sienawards.com

Image: overall winning shot Drone Awards 2021 @Terje Kolaas| Drone Awards 2021 - Photographer of the Year

A flock of geese flying over snowy lands: from Norway the overall winning shot of the Drone Awards 2021
A flock of geese flying over snowy lands: from Norway the overall winning shot of the Drone Awards 2021


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