Travel Photographer of the Year have revealed the winning images from the 2025 competition! The winning photos showcase a range of travel photography styles and subject matters, including intimate portraits and incredible wildlife to atmospheric landscapes with narratives surrounding climate change and culture. They take us on a visual journey around the world through both colour and black and white.
Amateur and professional photographers from 160 countries submitted more than 20,000 images in TPOTY 2025. The winning and placed entries combine to form a truly outstanding collection of contemporary travel photography. The winning shots – which can all be viewed in the Winners’ Gallery on tpoty.com – will go on exhibition, with dates and details of the venues to be confirmed soon.
Travel Photographer of the Year 2025
Athanasios Maloukos has been named as the overall Travel Photographer of the Year 2025, with some extremely atmospheric and intense images of a whirling devotion in Konya, Turkey and the Night of Sorrows: The ‘Yacente’ Procession in Zamora, Spain. Athanasios is an amateur photographer with a passion for photographing people and culture.
TPOTY founder Chris Coe said: “Shot in low light, these images require immense skill to get right. Shooting on the edge like this requires very careful use of shutter speed to selectively freeze and blur the movements in these two ceremonies. Here the hints of movement alongside the frozen elements enhance the atmosphere and drama in Athanasios’s photographs. This is all achieved in camera without over-processing, and conveys the depth and intensity of each moment.”
Athanasios Maloukos expressed his delight at this TPOTY award, “Winning the prestigious Travel Photographer of the Year award is both an immense honour and a deeply humbling experience. TPOTY is one of the few platforms that not only celebrates visual storytelling at the highest level but also offers artists meaningful international exposure.
This recognition encourages me to continue working quietly and respectfully, telling stories that explore the depth of belief, ritual, and human connection across cultures. In a world of fast images, TPOTY is a powerful reminder of the value of thoughtful, enduring photography.
Both of my awarded portfolios – on Anatolia’s Sufi rituals and the Yacente procession in Zamora – reflect my commitment to documenting spiritual traditions with sensitivity and depth. Working in environments shaped by silence, reverence, and low light demanded not only technical precision, but also emotional restraint.
In both cases, intentional motion blur became a visual metaphor for the inner intensity of devotion — a way to honour what cannot be fully seen or explained. These images are the result of patience, presence, and deep listening.”
Young Travel Photographer of the Year
In Young Travel Photographer of the Year the TPOTY awards celebrate the potential stars of the future. In 2024, 9 year old Jamie Smart was runner up in the 14yrs & under category. This year, now aged just 10 years old, she is the overall winner of Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2025 with an accomplished portfolio showing fruit bats, or flying foxes, both being cared for in the Zoo hospital in Beerwah, Queensland, Australia and flying wild.
15-year-old Romanian photographer Matei Mărăcineanu has taken the top honours in the Young TPOTY 15-18 years category with some beautiful shot birdlife images from Morii Lake, Bucharest, Romania. The Young TPOTY 14 years & Under category was won by 11-year-old Czech photographer Naomi Cech for her delicate and creative images of forest fungi near town of Kraliky, her native Czech Republic and on a trip to Africa.
Athanasios Maloukos’s prize includes a £1000 cash bursary from TPOTY, a 7 day trip to Sri Lanka courtesy of the Sri Lankan Tourist Board and Jetwing Hotels, Radiant Photo imaging software and a portfolio review from top New York agent Frank Meo. Young TPOTY winner Jamie Smart receives £500 from TPOTY, plus Radiant Photo imaging software. Naomi Cech and Matei Mărăcineanu, receive £250 each. All three young winners will also win a place on an Eye for the Light photography workshop or a photo critique.
Individual categories and awards
Italian photographer Sara Bardotti won the Adventures & Experiences portfolio category with her beautifully atmospheric black and white images of Nenet fishermen in Yamal peninsula, Siberia, Russia. They truly convey the freezing temperatures. Brazilian photographer Frederico Figueiredo CerdeiraI’s dramatic image of a surfer deep diving to dodge a wave at Cloudbreak Reef, Tavarua Island in Fiji won the Best Single Image award in this category.
The Culture, Heritage & Beliefs portfolio category gives an insight into the culture of lesser known Mauritania. Australian Mitchell Kanashkevich won this category with a portfolio which takes us into the a classroom inside a mahadara (Islamic education). Indian photographer Dashwater Bade, won the Best Single Image award with all the drama and movement of a a celebratory dance in Maharashtra, India.
The Landscape, Weather & Climate portfolio winners range from the subtle, almost zen, to the dramatic, offering different viewpoints and perspectives. The winner is Paul Sansome from the UK for his sublime minimalist landscapes of Árneshreppur, Iceland. While the Best Single Image award was won by Laetitia Guichard (France) with breathtaking image of a plane and funnel cloud amongst in the skies over France.
Kuwaiti photographer, Mohammad Murad, was the judges’ choice to win the Wildlife, Sealife & Birdlife category, with a colourful set of images of Arabian desert foxes juxtaposed with the urban lights of Kuwait City. The diversity of images and species in this category was remarkable – ranging from crabs and mud skippers, to reef life, butterflies and Komodo dragons.
Best Single Image
The Best Single Image award was won by Kevin You Shi (USA) for capturing a dramatic moment as a puma tries to take down a guanaco in another defining moment shot.
More winners…
The Rising Talent category, for amateur photographers and semi-pros only, was launched in 2024. For 2025 the five winners, Maruša Uranjek (Slovenia); Silke Hullmann (Germany); Christopher Harrison (UK); Liesel Geertsema (New Zealand); Sue O’Connell (UK), will be travelling to Sri Lanka for a week of mentoring, from TPOTY judges, Eye for the Light, by top pro photographers for the UK and USA. .
In addition, three photographers from the portfolio categories will receive an unusual opportunity to have their work reviewed by top New York photographers’ agent, Frank Meo from The PhotoCloser. These photographers are: Katy Gomez Catalina, Spain; Thibault Gerbaldi, France; and Suliman Alatiqi, Kuwait.
There were also four One Shot categories in 2025, challenging photographers to capture each category theme in just a single photograph – One Shot: Green Planet, One Shot: Slow Travel, One Shot: Travel in Monochrome and One Shot: Travel Portraits.
The awards are judged anonymously by a 16-strong international panel of imaging experts, who give their time and expertise freely to judge the awards. This year TPOTY welcomed two new judges to the panel: American travel and documentary photographer, Mark Edward Harris and fellow American photographer, Krystal Chryssomallis.
Further reading:
- Britain’s top 100 portraits revealed by British Journal of Photography
- See the best sport photographs from World Sports Photography Awards
- Pop-up Abbey Road Music Photography Awards exhibition coming to Greenwich!
- 50 years of Concorde – 10 pictures to make you go ‘wow’
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