The Atlantic:

Smithsonian magazine has just announced the winning entries in their 13th annual photo contest, selected from more than 46,000 entries sent in from 168 countries. They’ve shared the Grand Prize winner here, as well as the winning shots from the competition’s six categories: The Natural World, Travel, People, The American Experience, Altered Images, and Mobile.

As always, some spectacular images are presented here. I tell my photography students to look at and study these kinds of winning photographs and try and figure out how the photographer created it, both technically and creatively.