© Pink-Footed Geese Meeting the Winter by Terje Kolaas

It’s hard to believe that 2021 is almost over. As the year closes out, the winners for the 2021 Drone Photo Awards have been announced. The competition is sponsored by one of the most prestigious international photography award shows, the Siena Awards. As described on the award website, “Drone Awards is the most important worldwide competition about aerial photography and video. It’s a project of Siena Awards, dedicated to a different photographic genre deliberately separated from being compared to traditional photography.” This year’s photographers presented some incredibly stunning images through a perspective unique to drone photography.

Drones today are being used in countless ways, but the majority of these use cases all have one thing in common. The drone provides the user with a bird’s eye point of view to better accomplish a task. Whether a drone is being used in a search and rescue mission, conducting inspections, surveying land, creating maps, gathering scientific data, or even making deliveries, it is the camera on the drone that becomes the connecting link between person and machine. When a drone with an HD camera is put into the hands of an accomplished photographer, the results can be mesmerizing.

For the Drone Photo Awards, applicants submit drone images in the following categories: Urban, Wildlife, Sport, People, Nature, Abstract, Wedding, Series, and general Video. Each category is given a 1st Category, Runner Up, and then several Highly Commended and Commend awards. From all the submissions combined, there is also a single image chosen as Photo of the Year.

The Drone Photo Awards are open to professional and amateur photographers from around the world and offer some amazing prizes. The image designated as Photo of the Year is the highest honor. This photographer will also win the position of Drone Photographer of the Year along with € 500,00 worth of photography equipment and the coveted Pangea Prize crystal statuette. All the winning images will be displayed for at least 1 month at Siena’s “Above Us Only Sky” exhibit. The 2021 Photo of the Year/Drone Photographer of the Year was awarded to Terje Kolaas of Norway.

Terje has been a bird enthusiast since he was a child and began photographing them when he was only 12 years old. As an adult, his love of birds is abundant in all he does, from drone photography to bird watching tours and even teaching bird identification at Nord-Trøndelag University College. His winning photo, taken with a DJI Mavic 2, is of a flock of Pink-footed geese in flight. The image looks like it has been taken by one of the birds flying in the flock that happened to look to its right, checking in on the other birds around it.

It is images like Terje’s that set drone photography apart from standard photography. The drone allows us to see the world in a way we could have never imagined. These points of view tell compelling stories of the world around us. The images and stories give us an insight into how we influence the planet and vice versa, how the planet influences us. Submissions for the 2022 Drone Photo Awards will be accepted through January 10, 2022. Next year’s winners are sure to share some incredible stories with their drones.