A new competition dedicated to aerial photography has just released its winners. With a $5,000 cash prize for first place and publication of the top 101 images in a hardcover book, the International Aerial Photographer of the Year award attracted strong submissions from around the world.
The directors, who previously ran the International Landscape Photographer of the Year award, kept eligibility loose. Aerial photography can be taken from a drone, a mountaintop, or anything else (other than via AI).
Overall winner
Joanna Steidle, a New York-based drone photographer, took the inaugural first-place prize. Her work focuses on dramatic aerial seascapes and fauna interactions. With their recurring teals and silvers, the photographs she submitted to Aerial Photographer of the Year all feel like different pieces from the same overall work of art.
‘Diving.’ Photo: Joanna Steidle/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
‘Another World.’ Photo: Joanna Steidle/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
Icelandic volcanoes take second place
Daniel Vine Garcia of Spain brought home second place with his photographs of Icelandic volcanism. The color scheme of his work stands in stark contrast to Steidle’s. Where in her photos, water smooths out the frame, Garcia’s images feature stark contrasts between rock and magma.
‘Tree.’ Photo: Daniel Vine Garcia/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
‘The Nipple of the Earth.’ Photo: Daniel Vine Garcia/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
‘Smoking Skull.’ Photo: Daniel Vine Garcia/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
Third place
While Steidle and Garcia both won for bodies of work focusing on the same landscape features, the third-place winner submitted more varied landscapes. American David Swindler’s work ranges from ice encrusting a fractal plateau to…
‘Desert Playa.’ Photo: David Swindler/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
…to wading birds in the shallows…
‘Flamingos and Pelicans.’ Photo: David Swindler/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
…to the swirl of algae and clouded water on a lake as flamingos fly by…
‘Flamingos over the Lake.’ Photo: David Swindler/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
Individual aerials
Alongside the photographer winners, three individual photographs also won prizes. First place went to Igancio Palacios’ image of a miraculously conical mountain in Argentina at dusk, below.
In second place, Talor Stone photographed a glacier splintering into a lake in Greenland. The streaks of melting ice mimic the branching of a tree.
‘Tree of Ice.’ Photo: Talor Stone/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
Finally, Thomas Vijayan took home third place for his photograph of a glacier in Svalbard melting.
‘Austfonna Ice Cap.’ Photo: Thomas Vijayan/Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025
To see more, head on over to the competition website.
