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    The Sideshow

    National Geographic’s photo of the year winners

    By | The Sideshow – Mon, Jan 9, 2012

    National Geographic has released the winners of this year's worldwide photography competition. Back in November, we showed you some of the more compelling entries in the competition. Here is the photo that won both the Grand Prize and "Nature" categories, taken by Shikhei Goh in Batam, Riau Islands, Indonesia:

    The winner of this year's National Geographic photo competition

    Goh writes of his award-winning picture:

    This photo was taken when I was taking photos of other insects, as I normally did during macro photo hunting. I wasn't actually aware of this dragonfly since I was occupied with other objects. When I was about to take a picture of it, it suddenly rained, but the lighting was just superb. I decided to take the shot regardless of the rain. The result caused me to be overjoyed, and I hope it pleases viewers.

    The other main categories were "People" and "Places." Water is a regular theme in the top-placing photos; nine of the 14 featured pictures used water in the shot. More than 20,000 photos were entered in the competition, with entries coming in from more than 130 countries. Both professional and amateur photographers submitted their work.

    Here are some more of the winning photos:

    Space shuttle, Endeavour, launches into orbit, by James Vernacotola

    National Geographic says that its judges evaluated the submitted entries on the basis of creativity and photographic quality. The panel of judges included field biologist and wildlife photojournalist Tim Laman, Nationa National Geographic photographer Amy Toensing and National Geographic nature photographer Peter Essick.

    "Sulfuric fire festival", taken by Hung-Hsiu Shih in Taipei, Taiwan.

    You can see more of the winning photos here.

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