The 2025 Chromatic Awards Nature Category Was Packed With Stunning Color Photography (54 Pics)

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Ahtopol, Bulgaria

Description: “Five-meter-high waves crash against the lighthouse of Ahtopol. At the moment of impact, the water formed a shape resembling a sea monster — a fleeting scene captured with a fast shutter speed.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Description: “The lights of the North, they illuminate the sky during the long winter of the Polar region: like ethereal wraiths they suddenly appear and dance around, painting the sky all night long and enchanting us with their show.”

Chromatic Awards 2025 Grand Prize Winner
1st Place in the Professional Division, Nature Category

Location: Glacier Leones, Patagonia, Chile

Description: “A “Ring of Fire” solar eclipse reaches annularity as two ice climbers summit the Glacier Leones in Patagonia. A drone illuminates the ice’s textures and colours, battling fierce winds that whip up plumes of snow that burn in the sun’s rays.

In the foreground, the ice is strewn with rocky debris, remnants of a landslide triggered upstream. As the glacier receded, its retreat destabilised the valley walls, making them prone to collapse. This initiated a self-perpetuating cycle with the debris darkening the ice, increasing infrared absorption and further accelerating the glacier’s melt.

Recent years has seen this glacier retreat at an alarming rate, in places loosing ten meters of thickness every year. A trend that is consistent across the globe. Amplified by greenhouse gasses, it signals the demise of our frozen landscapes. By the time an eclipse passes this location, forecasts predict that there will no longer be a glacier for anyone to stand upon.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Mount Bromo, East Java, Indonesia

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “Here you can see a tiny tree in a big way. This tree is only 10-15 cm tall. So I lay down to take the photo to make the little tree appear larger. I also wanted to incorporate the sun and create a sunburst effect within the tree. It's truly fascinating how this little tree survives in the rock crevice and defies all kinds of weather.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “Burning gaze is a picture of a tree trunk that resembles a face. While walking in the forest, I came face to face with this old trunk and felt myself being observed. The hole in the trunk reminded me of an intense, burning gaze, so I decided to make this burning gaze more real. Through an image of flames and the white balance of the camera, I brought this image to life.”

1st Place Winner in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “Macro photography has the ability to transport us to sights unseen and places never visited. This surreal landscape of thorns looks like an other worldly mountain peak and foot hills.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Old Man of Storr, Scotland

Description: “As a moonrise burns across the horizon, lights cut through the darkness, illuminating the Old Man of Storr, in Scotland.

Gale force winds howled through the night, and blizzards reduced visibility to nothing. Suddenly the storm passed, replaced by a soft silence, ice crystals remained suspended in the atmosphere through which the moonlight refracted into a fiery orange.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Yellowstone National Park, USA

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Outer Banks, North Carolina, USA

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Sossusvlei Valley, Namib

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Switzerland

Description: “High above the fading light, noctilucent clouds drift like a memory of the sun. Their fragile ice crystals mirror the last glow from beyond the horizon.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “When you volunteer at a raptor rehabilitation center, sometimes you get the opportunity to release beautiful birds, like this gorgeous great horned owl that seems to have known he was going to be photographed and prepared by wearing what it looks like a bowtie. When birds take off, they usually go against the wind, which allowed me to place myself on higher ground with the sunset falling behind the path I expected the owl to take while taking off. This image was the result of a long time in rehabilitation, and years of photography practice.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Namib Naukluft National Park

Description: “Unusual red dunes.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Bouřňák Mountain, Czech Republic

Description: “Peak beech forest on Bouřňák Mountain in the Ore Mountains, October 2024, Czech Republic.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “The Horsehead Nebula and its surroundings. It's a bright emission nebula in the equatorial constellation of Orion. It was discovered on February 1 1786, by astronomer William Herschel. The nebula is located at a distance of approximately 1 260 light years from the Sun and spans the interior of a neutral hydrogen shell.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Krakow, Poland

Description: “Balloon on the background of the sunset, Krakow, Poland.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Antylope Canyon, Arizona, USA

3rd Place Winner in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “Known as the Spaghetti Nebula, this supernova remnant (SNR) straddles the border of the constellations Auriga and Taurus. At approximately 3000 light years from earth, it has an apparent diameter of 3 degrees which is about 6 full moons across but was not discovered until 1952 due to its low brightness. This image captures the lighted emitted by expanding ionized hydrogen and oxygen gases from the stellar explosion that took place some 40,000 years ago.

Total exposure time is 35.5 hours.”

2nd Place Winner in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “A male cheetah scales a tree and balances carefully on a small limb to scan the horizon for prey.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Bonn, Germany

Description: “In the heart of a dense forest, nature stages a quiet spectacle as fireflies weave glowing trails through the twilight. This photograph captures the fleeting dance of these bioluminescent creatures, illuminating the undergrowth like scattered stars. A wooden hunting stand stands silently among tall trees and wildflowers - a witness to the enchanting choreography unfolding in the fading light.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Iceland

Description: “From above, glacier rivers in Iceland's highlands carve mesmerizing patterns into the volcanic soil. Meltwater carries fine sediments, creating vibrant swirls of color. Amidst the dark soil, bright lichens emerge, symbolizing nature's resilience as life reclaims this harsh, yet stunning landscape.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Aletsh Glacier, Switzerland

Description: “Aletsh Glacier is the longest and most extensive glacier in the Alps. It rises at 4,000 meters from the peaks of the Jungfrau and flows down to the Valais at 2,500 meters. Its river of ice, more than 20 kilometers long, is so immense that it is visible from every point of Oberland. A unique landscape where, in summer, the crevasses create megalithic electromagnetic shapes.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “The Rosette Nebula is an hydrogen region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Description: “Neural Canopy explores the architecture of intelligence embedded within nature’s design. The sprawling limbs of this ancient tree located in the Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka evoke a living neural network - an organic system shaped by time, adaptation, and persistence. Each branch appears to search for light and balance, tracing new pathways, yet remains grounded in the memory of where it began - this mirrors the structure of thought itself.

Some branches bend down to the earth and root again, giving rise to new growth. This act of regeneration turns the tree to its own continuation - a reminder that life renews itself though connection and return.

The image was composed to emphasise rhythm and tension within apparent chaos. A desaturated palette abstracts the tree from its environment, transforming it from a literal landscape into a meditation on pattern, order, and resilience. Subtle shifts in tone and light reveal the intricate dialogue between structure and space - a visual language that unites the biological and the cerebral.

A cool, desaturated palette and gentle tonal contrasts abstract the scene into rhythm and form, transforming a familiar landscape into a meditation structure, resilience and adaptation.

Neural Canopy is both portrait and reflection - a study of how order emerges from chaos, how the patterns of thought and nature often follow the same invisible logic to reveal intelligence.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Germany

Description: “When nature awakens early in the morning, but the mist has still laid its veil over the forest, glowing in the rising sunlight, and this veil allows the treetops to peek out, sometimes more, sometimes less, in the morning light, then it is a magical moment.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Tsauchab River, Namibia

Description: “Deadvlei means "dead marsh." The clay pan was formed through repeated flooding of the Tsauchab river, which allowed a forest of camel thorn trees to thrive in the middle of a valley surrounded by giant 1000' sand dunes. A millennium ago the climate changed and the dunes fully enclosed the valley causing the trees to die. The wood is preserved through the heat of the sun and lack of rainfall. At dawn the direct backlighting of the sun causes the sand to explode in color, and the blue sky reflects off the white clay pan. One of the wonders of the world in my view.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Scoresby Sund, Greenland

Description: “Aerial view of a massive iceberg in Scoresby Sund. Its whiteness gradually blends into the darkness of the underlying water. This image can be seen as a metaphor for melting ice and the transition towards the disappearance of these beautiful but fragile ecosystems. We are just there, on the boat, and we seem to be ignoring the reality of things.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Sumatra

Description: “This photo was taken during my trip to Sumatra. The Rafflesia flower in the picture was only 3 days old. It was the only one in the area, which made the moment even more special. I felt very lucky to see such a rare and beautiful flower in person.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Tsauchab River, Namibia

Description: “At 325m above the Deadvlei pan the scale of the giant sand dune named Big Daddy is something amazing to behold.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Description: “At the center of the screen is a stunning image featuring a white lightning bolt cutting through a dramatic sky filled with deep blue and black storm clouds.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Falkland Islands

Description: “In this evocative photograph taken on the Falkland Islands, a procession of king penguins advances across a haze of wind-swept sand, their silhouettes regal against the pale horizon. Clad in sleek robes of onyx, ivory, and gold, they move with solemn grace, as though enacting an ancient ritual born of instinct and endurance. Each deliberate stride echoes a legacy of survival, where elegance is not delicate but resolute. In this moment, nature offers a living ode — to unity, to dignity, and to the quiet majesty of life at the edge of the world.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington, USA

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Yellowstone National Park, USA

Description: “The images were taken from a small aircraft in Yellowstone National Park, the oldest national park in the world and now a world natural heritage site. The hot springs, geysers and bubbling mud pots fascinate with their variety of colors.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Description: “Butterfly flying up in the meadow.”

3rd Place Winner in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Louisiana, USA

Description: “On an early November morning, I was canoeing through a quiet Louisiana swamp just after sunrise. Soft morning light filtered through the trees, creating a peaceful yet otherworldly atmosphere. A Great Egret glided gracefully across the water, catching my attention and drawing my lens to the richness of the swamp—a warm, thriving place that many creatures call home.”

3rd Place Winner in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Yellowstone National Park, USA

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Cologne, Germany

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Mount Bromo, East Java, Indonesia

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Friuli Venezia, Giulia, Italy

Description: “I love to explore streams and forests in search of new, hidden places where nature reveals its quiet beauty. This image captures one of those moments — where water, rocks, and autumn light merge into a peaceful harmony.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “This photograph captures the gentle beauty of cherry blossoms in full bloom, set against a clear blue sky. Using a shallow depth of field, I focused on the soft textures and warm colors of the petals to highlight their delicate, fleeting nature. The image invites viewers to pause and appreciate the quiet elegance of spring and the passing of time.
This photograph captures the gentle beauty of cherry blossoms in full bloom, set against a clear blue sky. Using a shallow depth of field, I focused on the soft textures and warm colors of the petals to highlight their delicate, fleeting nature. The image invites viewers to pause and appreciate the quiet elegance of spring and the passing of time. This photograph captures the gentle beauty of cherry blossoms in full bloom, set against a clear blue sky. Using a shallow depth of field, I focused on the soft textures and warm colors of the petals to highlight their delicate, fleeting nature. The image invites viewers to pause and appreciate the quiet elegance of spring and the passing of time. This photograph captures the gentle beauty of cherry blossoms in full bloom, set against a clear blue sky. Using a shallow depth of field, I focused on the soft textures and warm colors of the petals to highlight their delicate, fleeting nature. The image invites viewers to pause and appreciate the quiet elegance of spring and the passing of time. This photograph captures the gentle beauty of cherry blossoms in full bloom, set against a clear blue sky. Using a shallow depth of field, I focused on the soft textures and warm colors of the petals to highlight their delicate, fleeting nature. The image invites viewers to pause and appreciate the quiet elegance of spring and the passing of time.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Location: Scoresby Sund, Greenland

Description: “Issittoq means iceberg in Greenlandic. This is an aerial view of icebergs in Scoresby Sund. Their sizes and shapes create abstract forms evoking distant space. They seem to gradually disappear into nothingness.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “Long exposure of Icelandic Poppy.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “This is a 35mm color photograph capturing the reflection of a tree on a river. The water is clear and reveals a green river floor, with rich tonality giving depth and movement to the reflection.

The white throughout the image and the movement from the ripples in the water complicate the reflection in the image along with viewers' understandings. Viewers are left to contemplate the tension between such a clear, legible reflection and the layers and movement in the image.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “Curving in all directions, I find this dying tulip much more interesting than a pristine flower in full bloom. Its many tones and colors, the twists, turns and textures of the petals, its asymmetry — they all add up to a life well-lived.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Amateur Division

Description: “A towering elder wrapped in green stands sentinel over a grassy path. Rising from a carpet of wildflowers, it reigns like a monarch of a long-lost forest kingdom, holding the forgotten knowledge of worlds long past.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Son Tra Peninsula, Vietnam

Description: “The Son Tra Peninsula is a unique place, covered in wild forest. It is home to one of nature's most unique creatures - the Red Shanked Douc Langur. It lives only in Southeast Asia and is in critically endangered. Here in the picture, a semi-bare tree, which I photographed from its height, and between its branches a langur is looking.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Normandy, France

Description: “The photograph "The Sleeping Giant" is a motif from my "Creatures" series. The idea for this series was born using pareidolia, which describes the phenomenon of recognizing supposed faces and familiar beings or objects in things and patterns. Taken on a beach in Normandy on a cloudy day in winter 2024.”

Honorable Mention in the Natured Category, Professional Division

Location: Palcoyo Rainbow Mountains, Peru

Description: “The Palcoyo Rainbow Mountains, in the high Andes of Peru, reveal the earth’s history in color. Formed by mineral deposits over millions of years, their layers of red, blue, and yellow unfold like brushstrokes across the mountainside. This photograph captures the natural geometry and subtle gradients that make Palcoyo a quieter, yet equally mesmerizing counterpart to the more famous Vinicunca.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Cederberg mountains, South Africa

Description: “Rocks sculpted by bright sunlight and shadow into seemingly distinct, angular shapes, as photographed on a hike in the Cederberg mountains of South Africa earlier this year. The abstract shapes in the composition all have their own peculiar form, color and texture and have a pleasant arrangement across the frame without overpowering each other. The orange and reddish hues are caused by high concentrations of oxidized iron and manganese in the ancient sandstone.”

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Anapo River, Sicily

Honorable Mention in the Nature Category, Professional Division

Location: Gourgue d'Asque, France

Description: “In the heart of the Pyrenees, within the Gourgue d’Asque—often called the “Little Amazon”—the scene unfolds like a hidden dream. A soft veil of fog drifts above the quiet river, blurring the distance and adding a sense of mystery. At the foreground, lush ferns reach out, their delicate fronds glistening with moisture, while layers of dense vegetation spread beneath the canopy’s green embrace. The thick foliage and filtered light create a palette of deep, vibrant greens, where every leaf seems alive with detail. The mist, the river’s gentle flow, and the wild abundance of plant life merge into a mystic atmosphere, as if nature is guarding a secret only revealed to those who wander here.”