An American photographer wins big

American photographer Mitch Dobrowner recently won the L'Iris d'Or (Golden Iris) Photographer of the Year prize at the Sony World Photography Awards for 2012.  His winning entry was this stunning black-and-white study of a storm cloud near Dundee, Texas, which he titled 'Cell-Lightbing'.

He also submitted several other monochrome studies of stormy weather.  Click on each thumbnail picture at the link for a larger view, or on his name above to be taken to his own Web site.

Other entries at the competition were also pretty amazing - I'd have hated to be forced to choose between them!  Here are just three of the category winning photographs, with their descriptions from the competition Web site.  Click on an image title to go to its individual page, where it can be viewed in a larger size;  or click the photographers' names to go to their respective Web sites.


'Dancing queen' by Tobias Braeuning:  This is a collision of multiple coloured waterdrops. The first drop falls into the water, then the green splash comes up, colliding with a yellow drop. Somme milliseconds later, the red drop arrives and also collides. Finally, a blue drop is arriving, captured short before touching the splash.

'Spring time' by Krzysztof Browko:  South Moravia. Czech Republic. Agricultural areas, fields.

'Symphony of fire' by Natalibel:  no description provided.

There are many galleries of the photographs submitted for this year's competition.  They'll give you hours of viewing pleasure, if photography is among your interests.  Highly recommended.

Congratulations to Mr. Dobrowner and all the category winners - in fact, to all the photographers whose work was accepted into the competition.  It's quite an honor just to get that far!

Peter