2023 Natural Landscapes Photography Awards Winner

I am excited and extremely honored to announce that my image Tempest - Crawford Notch captured during a spring snowstorm in New Hampshire was selected as the Black & White category Winner in the international 2023 Natural Landscape Photography Award competition. From the Award's Website:" The competition aims to represent landscape photographers who recognize the power that comes from truthful depiction of the natural world, whether shooting digitally or on film. While other competitions may allow complete freedom in digital manipulation (sky replacement, adding/subtracting elements from the scene, blending images from different times and/or place, AI generated aspects of image etc), this competition represents those who chose to work within the more traditional bounds of the medium, while still expressing themselves creatively. It addresses the unique quality photography has over other artistic mediums is in its grounding in reality - showcasing images revealing the wonders of the natural landscape...A great landscape photograph is able to transport the viewer to relive a moment in time, distant location, or smaller scene through the eyes of the photographer...By constraining the photographs to represent the natural world in a truthful manner, we create trust in our artform's unique position to pair real experiences with artistic creation. This does not preclude the use of editing tools such as Photoshop, which when used with sensitivity, can enhance the viewer's experience without misleading them." The competition consisted of over 11,000 images representing 54 countries.

I use Photoshop to manually process my RAW digital files from the camera, something Smartphones do automatically these days. For this image, there were some warmer areas on the trees that I felt did not add to the mood of the image, so I converted to BW.

Winning images in other categories can be found Here.