A Visual Feast Of Awesome Images Win Travel Photo Of The Year Competition

© Sanghamitra Sarkar 

The Wanderlust Travel Photo of the Year competition has announced its latest winners and the winning images are awesome examples of what you can capture when exploring the world. 

This is the 22nd instalment of the contest and over 7,000 people entered images into the five categories: 'Icon', 'Landscape', 'Wildlife', 'People' and 'Portfolio'.

Sanghamitra Sarkar took the top title in the 'Icon' category with her colourful capture of the Taj Mahal. This famous building has to be one of the most photographed structures in the world and Sanghamitra has managed to capture the iconic structure with an original perspective, something the judges were keen to praise. 

© Vittorio Ricci

It wasn’t the location of the winning 'Landscape' category photo by Vittorio Ricci that captured the judges’ eyes, but its simple composition with Paul Harris (judge and professional photographer) describing it as 'Mysterious, ancient and beautifully composed' and Julia Wainwright’s winning image from the 'Wildlife' category is certainly eye-catching with two lions capturing a wildebeest perfectly captured in one frame. The title -‘Facing certain death’ - perfectly surmises the moment and competition judge, Paul Goldstein, who's also a professional photographer, said: "There’s no challenge in capturing the aftermath of a kill; top marks to Julia for making the ordinary extraordinary!"

© Julia Wainwright

Christopher Roche won the 'People' category with an image captured in Peru which shows bands of Ukukus heading up to the glaciers to perform initiation ceremonies and Trevor Cole took the top spot in the 'Portfolio' category with five images of the Afar tribe in Ethiopia. Trevor spent days following the tribe as they traversed Ethiopia’s Danakil Desert to harvest salt by hand in temperatures of over 50°C and load them onto the arriving caravans.

© Christopher Roche

The four amateur winners of the individual categories will head off on a photo commission to Thailand, courtesy of Tourism Thailand while Trevor Cole will receive £3,000.

Those who were shortlisted for each category can be viewed below and do visit the Wanderlust Travel Photo of the Year competition website for more information on the contest. 

© Simon Booth

© Ruth Spencer

© Vittorio Ricci 

© Brian McCready 

© Ko Ko Zaw

© Khairel Anuar Che Ani

© Ray Hems

© Giovanni Frescura