Dazzling damselflies and a SpaceX plume commended by photo awards

THIS dazzling shot is among the standout entries to the inaugural Photographer of the Year competition by photo website Nature TTL. It was selected from more than 7000 images submitted by wildlife photographers from 117 countries.

Flower Power by Brandon Yoshizawa was highly commended in the Landscape category. It shows the flower-shaped exhaust plume of a SpaceX rocket illuminated by twilight in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Western US. Yoshizawa said the scene was “one of the most incredible things I’ve been able to witness and capture”.

Also highly commended in this category was a vibrant scene near an Icelandic mountain, taken with a drone by Dipanjan Pal after he “noticed the blue river perfectly popping against the black sand”.

The competition’s overall winner shows a group of crabeater seals in Antarctica resting on the ice after a night of feeding. Florian Ledoux captured the animals with a drone, knowing the broken ice would be a particularly spectacular backdrop when viewed from the air.

Robert Page was named runner-up in the Macro category for his image of a group of damselflies. He looked for the most photogenic mating pairs in his local park in London, choosing this group for the symmetry of its formation.

While on holiday in Malaysia, Jesslyn Saw endured tropical heat and humidity during two days of early morning stake-outs before spotting a colourful female jumping spider peeking out of its nest. Her image was highly commended in the Macro category

Entries for next year’s competition open in December.