Drone Awards Announced The Best Drone Photos of 2018

The growing popularity of drone photography is making competitions proliferate in this discipline. This is the case of the Drone Awards 2018, a contest that this year celebrated its first edition and is organized by Art Photo Travel, an Italian cultural association that also organizes the Siena International Photo Awards.

“With the sky as the only limit” for this contest, the organization claims to have received more than 4,400 entries from photographers from 101 different countries among which the final winners of six categories were chosen (Abstract, Nature, People, Sports, Urban and Wildlife) with the France’s Florian Ledoux who Drone Below interviewed earlier this year, as the main winner to take the title of “Photographer of the Year” with his photo ‘Above the polar bear’.

The image was taken during the summer in the icy waters of northern Canada and shows in a zenith plane a bear crossing between pieces of ice. As you can imagine, the photographer seeks to denounce the problems that climate change is bringing, one of which is the increasing scarcity of ice that directly affects the polar bears that depend on this element to hunt.

We leave you with the winning photos, enjoy!

Photographer of the Year

The winner of the contest was Florian Ledoux (France)

Photo Of The Year: Above The Polar Bear

Category Abstract

Winner: Ovi D. Pop (Romania) with ‘Weather Snake’:

Runner Up: Martin Mecnarowski (Czech Republic) with ‘Ice Magic’:

Highly Commended: Branko Markovic (Switzerland) with ‘Dendrites’:

Highly Commended: Zhiqiang Huang (China) with ‘Whirlpool’:

Highly Commended: Stephan Fürnrohr (Germany) with ‘The Design of an Iceberg’:

Highly Commended: Casey McCallister (USA) with ‘Nucleus’:

Category Nature

Winner: Gabriel Scanu (Australia) with ‘Mada’in Saleh’:

Runner Up: Xiaoxiao Liu (China) with ‘Entrance to Hell’:

Highly Commended: Mieke Boynton (Australia) with ‘Organic’:

Highly Commended: Peter Virag (Australia) with ‘”Red Sand Garden’:

Highly Commended: Kirsten Täuber (Germany) with ‘Der Kratera’:

Highly Commended: Xudong Yang (China) with ‘Wetland Winter’:

Category People

Winner: Qinghua Shui (China) with ‘Pilgrimage of Millions of People’:

Runner Up: Xiaoxiao Liu (China) with ‘Honors Day’:

Highly Commended: Senrong Hu (China) with ‘Sportsmen Under the Sun’:

Highly Commended: Keyvan Jafari (Iran) with ‘Women Rice Farmers’:

Highly Commended: Davide Lopresti (Italy) with ‘Silvia’:

Highly Commended: Raf Willems (Belgium) with ‘Chauntel in the Desert’:

Sports Category

Winner: Vincent Riemersma (Holland) with ‘Skating Shadows’:

Runner Up: Luis Alonso Jimenez Silva (Costa Rica) with ‘The Angel’:

Highly Commended: Stefan Thaler (Austria) with ‘Red Kayak’:

Highly Commended: Fan Zhang (China) with ‘Saving to Start Out’:

Highly Commended: Shihui Liu (China) with ‘Basketball’:

Highly Commended: Shoayb Khattab (Iraq) with ‘Vertical Racing’:

Urban Category

Winner: Francesco Cattuto (Italy) with ‘Assisi Over the Clouds’:

Runner Up: Byron du Bois (South Africa) with ‘Warehouse Fire’:

Runner Up: Gary Cummins (Ireland) with ‘Ameneties’:

Highly Commended: Yavor Michev (Russia) with ‘Cold Winter Night’:

Highly Commended: Alex Visbal (Austria) with ‘Chaos’:

Highly Commended: Davide Lopresti (Italy) with ‘Cargo’:

Category Wildlife

Winner: Adam Barker (USA) with ‘Blacktip Shark’:

Runner Up: Thomas Vijayan (Canada) with ‘Big Shadow’:

Runner Up: Dhritiman Mukherjee (India) with ‘Responsible Daddy the Gharial with Babies’:

Highly Commended: Thomas Vijayan (Canada) with ‘Great Immigration Birds Eye View’:

Highly Commended: Bachir Moukarzel (Lebanon) with ‘Whale Sharks’:

Highly Commended: Anders Carlson (USA) with ‘Mother and Calf’: