The National Geographic Photo Contest 2012 Winners

With the new year comes the chance to recap the best entries of the previous year. National Geographic, one the leading publications in photojournalism, continues to encourage the tradition of excellence in professionals and amateur photographers alike with its photography competitions. Here are National Geographic Photo Contest 2012 winners.

This year saw the National Geographic Photo Contest 2012 accept some 22,000 entries from 150 countries, from beginners to professionals, all hoping to be recognized in at least one of these three categories: People, Places and Nature. Each of these categories had a winner, with honorable mentions included. A Grand Prize Winner was selected out of all of the categories and entries combined. A Viewers' Choice was also selected for each of category. Overall, there were 13 top photographs selected by the judges.

The winners of the Places category were Nenad Saljic, Indra Swari Wonowidjojo, and Adam Coish. The People category winners included Micah Albert, Wendell Phillips, Ulrich Lambert, Kwan Ka Shing, and Kai-Otto Melau. The Nature category winners were Ashley Vincent, Fransisca Harlijanto, Jason Ching, Eric Guth, Micheal Eastman, and Sanjeev Bhor, with the Grand Prize going to Ashley Vincent.

There was some controversy this year as one of the original winners, Harry Fisch, was disqualified shortly after he was informed of his winning entry. After mailing the contest organizers a copy of his original photograph, his entry was disqualified as it seemed he had edited the photo against the rules of the competition.

Fisch had edited out a small plastic bag in a scene he captured in Varanasi, India. Unfortunately, the competition rules state that "only minor burning, dodging and/or color correction is acceptable", and Fisch's edit was considered a major image edit. This just goes to show how even a small edit can affect even the best entries into a photo contest.

The full gallery of the National Geographic Photo Contest 2012 winners can be found here. For a very related photo contest, check out the winning entries to the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest 2012.