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Standout Non-Professional Photos From The Exposure One Awards Nature Photography Contest You’ll Want To Study (43 Pics)
After recently sharing highlights from the Exposure One Awards’ Black & White Nature Photography Contest in the Animals category, and then jumping into the wildly different worlds of Aerial and Underwater, we’re back with another slice of the 2025 winners.
This time, we’re narrowing the focus to the non-professional division, pulling together the category winners and honorable mentions from the areas we haven’t featured yet: Earth’s Textures, Humans & Nature, Land, Light & Shadow, Minimalism, Other, and Pattern & Form.
Let us know which are your favorites, and of course, check out all of 2025’s submissions on Exposure One’s website and Instagram page.
More info: exposureoneawards.com | Instagram | Facebook
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
“The Boy And His Camels” By Shyamala Thilagaratnam
Description: In Turkana, Kenya, the little boys took their job of herding their family's camels seriously. They led these huge beasts confidently, despite being dwarfed by them.
Honorable Mention in the Humans & Nature Category.
Cee Cee 6 hours ago (edited)
I was at school in Kenya. The Turkana people are incredible. Pastoralists who live in a very arid part of Kenya. Largely subsisting on milk, blood and meat but do grow smal amounts of sorghum and beans. They practice polygamy and divide people according to age - leopards and stones. Their beadwork is fabulous as are their complicated hair-do's. All in all a really interesting group of Nileotic people.
If Animals was all about presence and personality, and Aerial/Underwater leaned into “how is this even real,” this set is more about seeing. These categories reward photographers who can spot structure in chaos, and meaning in the quiet stuff most people walk past.
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#2
“Natural Bonding” By Dori Darvish
Description: A moment of bonding, trust, and empathy. Created at a therapeutic horse farm where children heal through contact with animals. It explores the delicate boundary between strength and vulnerability. The mirrored gesture of closed eyes is a symbol of the intimate interaction and mutual understanding.
Silver Award in the Humans & Nature Category.
#3
“Nature’s Corridor” By Sofia Stead
Description: A tree grows through a man-made shaft of concrete, reaching for a sky we framed and forgot.
Nominee in the Humans & Nature Category.
It’s cracked mud that looks like a map. A single figure in a landscape that suddenly feels enormous. Shadows that do more work than the subject itself. Minimal frames where one line, one ripple, or one shape carries the whole image.
#4
“Lighthouse - Number 02” By Michael Ritzie
Description: A lighthouse beam cuts through a star-filled sky, its spiral tower glowing against the darkness. Surrounded by quiet land and distant trees, it stands as a lone guide in the night—steady, bright, and timeless under the Milky Way.
Bronze in the Light & Shadow Category.
#5
“Lunar Ride” By Himanshu Sukhwal
Description: “It began with a dream to capture a plane crossing the moon. When I learned a blood moon would occur in Sept 2025, I tracked flight and lunar paths for months. That night, I caught a fleeting moment — a plane gliding across the glowing moon, uniting humans and nature in one frame.”
Silver Award in the Humans & Nature Category.
What makes the non-professional division especially fun is that it's open to anyone, and thus the moments and views caught are often ordinary in context, but the imagery itself is anything but that.
#6
“Matterhorn” By Christiane Körber
Bronze in the Land Category.
Nominee in the Lights & Shadow Category.
#7
“Souvenirs Of A Broken Life” By Adam Borzsonyi
Description: “This series follows my creative journey of healing through creating. All photos taken with Bronica SQ-Ai and Zenzanon 80mm f/2.8 & 150mm f/4 lenses, mostly on Ilford Delta 100 or Kodak Tmax400 films at box speed. Home-developed and home-scanned. Locations include the Schwarzwald, Acadia, Dolomites, etc.”
Honorable Mention in the Other Category.
The strongest shots tend to have a clear idea and a clean execution, the kind of photos that make you pause, squint, and go, “Wait… what am I looking at?”
#8
“The Badlands, South Dakota” By Neil Reichline
Bronze Award in the Earth’s Textures Category.
#9
“Cabin View” By Katrina Peterson
Description: A window view of the Tetons that ranchers have seen for the past 137 years.
Silver Award in the Land Category.
Taken together, these winners and honorable mentions feel like a reminder that nature photography isn’t only about dramatic wildlife or extreme locations. Sometimes it’s about noticing the patterns, textures, and tiny visual “rules” the world keeps repeating and having the patience to frame them before they disappear.
#10
“Fragments Of Patagonia” By Rodolfo Redivo
Description: “A small house. The eternal ice. And we, fragments before the vastness.”
Honorable Mention in the Land Category.
#11
“The Magnificent Mulafossur” By Jeff Beatty
Description: The Mulafossur waterfall of the Faroe Islands falls precipitously to the ocean with the small village of Gasadalur in the backgroud.
Honorable Mention in the Land Category.
Nominee in the Ocean Category.
#12
“Geometry Of Wind And Rain” By Sergio Fadul
Description: In the vast stillness of Brazil’s Lençóis Maranhenses, a lone figure stands between light and shadow, sand and water — a reminder of our smallness before nature’s endless forms sculpted by wind and rain.
Honorable Mention in the Pattern & Form Category.
#13
“Climbing Dune 45” By Debbie Lucas
Description: Walking up Dune 45 in Sossusvlei is a challenge, and the 2 people at the bottom have a long way to go.
Silver Award in the Light & Shadow Category.
#14
“Diamonds And Pearls” By Laurence De La Gorce
Description: Frosted spiderweb on a freezing morning
Silver Award in the Pattern & Form Category.
#15
“Riders Of The Dunes” By Brad Girard
Description: Nomadic Mongolian camel herders in the Gobi Desert.
Honorable Mention in the Humans & Nature Category.
#16
“Dead Trees In A Sandstorm” By Shyamala Thilagaratnam
Description: In Deadvlei, Namibia, these trees, estimated to be about 900 years old, have been dead for about 700 years. The wood hasn't decomposed due to the extreme dryness of the area, resulting in an otherworldly landscape, especially when the wind dramatically whipped up the sand.
Honorable Mention in the Land Category.
#17
“Grace In Flight” By Maria Ciampini
Description: Two terns face each other in the sky, their black and white wings unfolding gracefully. In their brief encounter, there is a tender closeness that suggests a timeless connection. Flight becomes poetry, a meditation on balance, harmony, and the beauty of presence.
Bronze Award in the Minimalism Category.
Nominee in the Animals Category.
#18
“Pfahlwerk” By Rainer Lüdecke
Description: Pfahlwerk explores the quiet tension between man-made structures and natural space. Solitary piles rise from water and sky, reduced to essential lines. The series invites stillness, focusing on balance, rhythm, and the beauty of minimal form.
Honorable Mention in the Minimalism Category.
#19
“Dense” By Wesley Barker
Description: A palm jungle on Indonesia's Penida Island portrays how quickly the sunlight is absorbed by the dense canopy above.
Gold Award in the Earth’s Textures Category.
Honorable Mention in the Minimalism Category.
Honorable Mention in the Lights & Shadow Category.
#21
“Sunlight On Silent Branches” By Marcos Franchetti
Honorable Mention in the Light & Shadow Category.
#22
“Lonely Tree” By Jack Lefor
Description: Living in an open area of mostly fields and grasslands, this lonely tree stands in stark contrast compared to the large wind turbines in this snowy-covered scene.
Honorable Mention in the Minimalism Category.
Nominee in the Land Category.
#23
“Vegan Portraits” By Alain Van Hille
Description: “Before being cooked & eaten, the veggies, cabbage & pumpkin let me discover their secret & mysterious labyrinthian soul.”
Silver Award in the Other Category.
Nominee in the Pattern & Form Category.
Nominee in the Abstract Category.
#24
“Faces Of The Sky” By Marcos Franchetti
Description: From the state of Tocantins in central Brazil, to New Zealand, to the Pantanal, and to the Serengeti in Tanzania, this gallery aims to showcase the different faces of the sky in various parts of the world. Each face has its own charm and fascination.
Silver in the Earth’s Textures Category.
#25
“Yosemite In Fog” By Gayle Pepper
Description: Snow and fog accent the pines and majestic mountain ridges of Yosemite.
Honorable Mention in the Earth’s Textures Category.
#26
“Flamingo Medley” By Rick Beldegreen
Description: “These feeding flamingos were photographed in Kenya. To obtain this viewing angle and create separation of the birds, I climbed an embankment overlooking the lake.”
Bronze Award in the Minimalism Category.
#27
“All Quiet On The Western Front” By John Salinardo
Honorable Mention in the Other Category.
#28
“Velvety Sand” By Petra Brix
Description: Khongoryn Els are some of the largest and most spectacular sand dunes in Mongolia. They are up to 300m high, 12km wide, and about 100km long. From afar, the dunes look like painted, up close, they seem to change into blankets made of velvet, discarded by some giant in the Mongolian steppe.
Honorable Mention in the Earth’s Textures Category.
#29
“A Sea Of Horns” By Rachael Ryan
Description: “I took this photo on my iPhone as I was helping my sister move goats around the yards….the dust billowed up so much one could hardly see!”
3rd Place Overall Contest Winner
Gold Award in the Humans & Nature Category.
#33
“A Dream Within A Dream” By Marcos Franschetti
Description: Bambo Forest in Kyoto, using a vertical panning technique.
Gold Award in the Pattern & Form Category.
Honorable Mention in the Abstract Category.
#36
“Snow Rests Without Weight” By Markus Busch
2nd Place Overall Contest Winner.
Gold Award in the Land Category.
#37
“Gossamer Ballet” By Davind Stine
Description: This is a Calla lily lit by a flashlight. The abstract rendering reminded me of a ballerina soaring into the air with arms entwined above her head.
Gold in the Light & Shadow Category.
#38
“Emerging Light” By Cristian Dinivitzer
Description: Light emerges from the horizon, dissolving shadow into form. In this moment of quiet transformation, the landscape becomes a meditation on time, renewal, and the subtle geometry of light itself.
Silver Award in the Light & Shadow Category.
#39
“Fence In Snow” By Jack Lefor
Description: “I love minimal photography, and in this photo, I like the fence disappearing in the distance, providing depth to this snow-covered landscape.”
Gold Award in the Minimalism Category.
#40
“Cattails In Snow” By Jack Lefor
Description: “As I was searching for possible photos, I came across this simple, minimalistic scene of just a few cattail stems against a snow-covered background.”
Silver Award in the Minimalism Category.
#43
“Timewheel Above The Wreck” By Andres Papp
Description: Long star trails spin like a cosmic wheel over the skeletal remains of a shipwreck on the Estonian coast. The UV torch skims across the weathered wood and glittering shore, linking the wreck’s slow decay with the patient rotation of the night sky.
Bronze Award in the Other Category.
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