At its best, photography transports you to another place, telling a story about its people, nature, or landscapes.
With the start of a new year underway, we look back at some of 2025's best travel and nature photography, as selected by various publications and photo competitions. These images feature locations around the world and inspiration for the year ahead. Enjoy!
Audubon
“The 2025 Audubon Photography Awards: The Top 100”
The Audubon Photography Awards expanded in 2025 to include submissions from residents of Chile and Colombia, to tell the story of hemispheric bird conservation. From thousands of entries, Audubon recognized among its top 100 an unusual perspective of a Great Frigatebird in the Galápagos, a hungry Shoebill stork in Uganda, and a Green Hermit hummingbird protecting its nest in Colombia.
California Academy of Sciences
“BigPicture: Natural World Photography Competition Winners”
With this photo competition, the California Academy of Sciences aims to celebrate the planet’s rich biodiversity and inspire conservation action through the power of imagery. The Grand Prize winner showcases a troop of common brown lemurs navigating a precarious spot in Madagascar; other highlights include a cluster of Honduran white bats in Costa Rica and a Kenya Wildlife Service team assisting a black rhino.
NANPA
“2026 Showcase”
The North American Nature Photography Association’s annual juried photo competition features breathtaking shots and video captured by its talented members. This year, NANPA collaborated with the International League of Conservation Photographers to select a Best in Category, First Runner-Up, and two Judges’ Choice awards across eight categories. The 2026 overall Best in Show winner is a magical black-and-white photo of Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, while some of the other winners include unique shots of New Zealand’s stunning South Island landscapes and an elegant gentle glider swimming in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.
National Geographic
“2025 Pictures of the Year”
Awe-inspiring face-to-lens encounters with wildlife, like a majestic jaguar in an area of Brazil where extreme deforestation has decimated the species’ population and a great white shark off the coast of Maine that signals the increasing presence of 10-footer sharks thanks to a rebound of seal populations after the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, are just some of the great images and stories captured all over the world by the winners of NatGeo’s Pictures of the Year contest.
National History Museum
"2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year"
This annual photography contest was developed by the National History Museum, London in 1965. The 19 category winners went on display in an exhibition at the museum in October. This gallery includes a photo of a brown hyena in Namibia that took a decade to perfect, an image of the extremely rare caracal in Tanzania with freshly caught prey, and a longhorn beetle juxtaposed with abandoned machinery.
Nikon
"Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025 Winners"
From a playful gorilla in the Virunga Mountains and a chimpanzee picking its nose to a trio of "singing" lions and a frog locked in the throes of battle, the Comedy Wildlife Awards highlight humor to encourage empathy for the wildlife and the environment.
