Spanish Photo Contest Highlights Spectacular Mountain Images

Every year, the Club Vasco de Camping Elkartea, a small mountaineering club in the Pyrenees east of Bilbao, runs a photo contest for mountain images. CVCEPhoto draws entries from photographers around the world, leading to a surprisingly strong collection of winners for what seems like mainly a local contest.

Last week, the awards ceremony took place. Here are some of the winners.

During a crossing of the Alps from Italy to France, a skier passes through a glacial corridor. Photo: Anna Ivanova

 

Some photo ideas take years to bring off. Years ago, photographer Christian Gore was climbing near this arch in Italy but never captured the image he wanted. One night, long after he and his wife moved to Canada, he woke up with the image in his head. Eventually, he returned to Italy, enlisted a climber friend, and nailed the image.

 

While working on a documentary in Iceland about extreme kayaking, David Nogales discovered the Aldeyjarfoss waterfall. The fluted basaltic columns of the cliff gave the scene an added element of interest.

 

Nikolai Bruegger came to this spot — presumably near the Matterhorn — specifically to shoot the Milky Way. The 20-second exposure at ISO 4000 gave him what he wanted.

 

With snow in the forest, Felix Urrutia ventured into Urkiola Natural Park in northern Spain to photograph the beech forest, still with autumn leaves. When a couple passed between two trees in his frame, he knew he had the shot of the day.

 

Jerry Kobalenko

Jerry Kobalenko is the editor of ExplorersWeb. One of Canada’s premier arctic travelers, he is the author of The Horizontal Everest and Arctic Eden, and has just finished a book about adventures in Labrador. In 2018, he was awarded the Polar Medal by the Governor General of Canada and in 2022, he received the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for services to exploration.