From the parting of a mist’s ethereal cloak to the narrowing borders of a drying lake, the two winners of this year’s Wiki Loves Earth photo contest remind us of Earth’s timeless beauty and its fragility.

For more than a decade, the volunteer-organized Wiki Loves Earth has been capturing the breathtaking essence of the planet’s natural heritage. Photos of all sorts of nature, from iconic national parks to hidden gems in local green spaces, are eligible. Wiki Loves Earth’s winners fell into two categories: a “macro/close-up” category (including animals, plants, fungi) and a “landscapes” category for wider shots.

This year’s winner of the macro category captures a majestic deer emerging from a mist-shrouded forest a bit east of Rome. One of Wiki Loves Earth 2024’s judges called the deer “a scene straight out of a mystery film,” while another said that the connection between the deer and photographer Michele Illuzzi felt “supernatural.”

The equivalent winner of the landscapes category went up high to portray the scaly land that reveals Lake Burdur‘s evaporating footprint in western Turkey. A contest judge commended photographer Fatih Yılmaz’s artistry and “unusual dynamic composition” that found a balance between color and texture.  This year, Wiki Loves Earth received more than 80,000 submissions from over 3,800 participants in 56 countries — the highest number of countries ever in the contest’s history. From those, 583 were selected by local jury teams and forwarded to the international competition. You can learn more about Wiki Loves Earth and its full rules on its website. Check out the nineteen other winners below.

Landscapes

Photo by Maksat Bisengaziyev/Максат79, CC BY-SA 4.0

Second place (landscapes): The Ustyurt Nature Reserve in the far southwestern portion of Kazakhstan supports a wide variety of fauna across its varied landscapes, which range widely in elevation. It’s a bit larger than the country of Mauritius. Photographer Maksat Bisengaziyev framed this view of a few of the reserve’s many rock formations so that there would be a diagonal line running from the bottom left to the top right. One judge noted that this technique “created depth without compromising too much of the objects’ sharpness.”

Photo by İsmail Daşgeldi/Ismailtasgeldi, CC BY-SA 4.0

Third place (landscapes): The Wiki Loves Earth judges loved İsmail Daşgeldi’s composition and sense of scale in this photo. A viewer’s eye starts at the top of the enormous and looming mountains. Their true size is slowly revealed as the eye follows the winding road to Yaylalar, a small Turkish village of just 43 people, at the bottom.

Photo by Maksat Bisengaziyev/Максат79, CC BY-SA 4.0

Fourth place (landscapes): Maksat Bisengaziyev’s sense of scale was on display in this photo, which backdrops the Hürmetçi Marshes with Mount Erciyes on a mid-April morning. But what puts this image over the top is the lonely animal near the center, pausing for a moment to get a drink.

Photo by İsmail Daşgeldi/Ismailtasgeld, CC BY-SA 4.0

Fifth place (landscapes): At least one blogger has called this range the ‘tiramisu mountains’, and anyone who has had the Italian dessert would think it’s easy to see why. This is another İsmail Daşgeldi photo from Kazakhstan, with this one coming from the Kyzylsai Regional Nature Park. “There is something majestic about the composition,” one contest judge saw. “The low light brings out the structure in the surface really well without tinting the color on the stone too much.”

Photo by Missoni Francesco/Scosse, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sixth place (landscapes): Missoni Francesco’s photo of a glacial lake in extreme northeastern Italy brings chills, and not just for the temperature. Wiki Loves Earth’s judges loved the innovative use of the lake’s reflections and the mist swirling around the mountain peaks. “Such deep blues, and in so many shades,” they added.

Photo by Marat Nadjibaev, CC BY-SA 4.0

Seventh place (landscapes): The first thing you are likely to notice in this shot of Kyrgyzstan’s Madygen Formation are the colors, resulting from lakes and rivers running their way to a nearby ocean millions of years ago. One contest judge thought that Marat Nadjibaev’s photo “truly makes one appreciate the Earth’s many unseen wonders,” while another opined that the cloudy day helped ensure that a blue sky did not detract from the rock’s colors.

Photo by Turan Reis/Turreis10700, CC BY-SA 4.0

Eighth place (landscapes): On this crisp November morning, Turan Reis got out of bed early to capture a moment in time at Karagöl-Sahara National Park in northeastern Turkey. They discovered morning mist drifting through vibrant autumn trees, with a late-year sun creating lengthy rays of light and deep shadows across a few rolling hills.

Photo by Skander Zarrad, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ninth place (landscapes): Like something out of a Bond film, a fish trap provides the frame for Skander Zarrad’s photo of a fisherman returning at daybreak to sell their catch. This scene was found in Tunisia’s Kerkennah Islands.

Photo by Ekrem Kalkan/Kecags, CC BY-SA 4.0

Tenth place (landscapes): Wiki Loves Earth’s judges commended the “fantastic perspective” of this top-down shot of Turkey’s Yedigöller National Park, which includes a wide variety of trees in an array of autumnal colors. They also loved how the viewers would be drawn through the photo by the narrow road’s meandering path.

Macro/close-ups

Photo by Lukáš Kött/Luckhy86, CC BY-SA 4.0

Second place (macro): It’s a tender moment between parent and child: this Eurasian hoopoe prepares to feed its hungry offspring with a recently captured bug. Lukáš Kött took this visual poetry in South Moravia, located in the southern Czech Republic near its border with Austria. “Not only full of action, but educational too,” said one Wiki Loves Earth judge. Another photo from Lukáš Kött took tenth place in the macro category.

Photo by Mehmet Karaca/Mkrc85, CC BY-SA 4.0

Third place (macro): Mehmet Karaca’s fascinating image of two conehead mantises in Turkey’s Kapıçam Nature Park lends itself to all manner of personification. One judge who reviewed the photo found themselves humming the theme from the classic American comedy The Pink Panther. What do you see?

Photo by Lubomír Dajč, CC BY-SA 4.0

Fourth place (macro): It may look like these yellow-winged darters are taking a break from work, but they’re not old enough to fly yet. These newly hatched animals are drying out on a twig in the Czech Republic’s Žďárské vrchy protected natural area. One judge called out Lubomír Dajč’s photo for its “wonderfully crisp contours” and added that it was “oozing complementary colors”.

Photo by Anissheikh2647, CC BY-SA 4.0

Fifth place (macro): User:Anissheikh2647 helped this bonded couple of pheasant-tailed jacanas while the birds went through the difficult process of raising a chick. ” I love many aspects of this shot,” one judge said. “The color palette reinforces the composition, the sharpness of the details is just right and complements the bokeh effect, and the contrasting motion between the two birds is beautifully captured, adding levels to the image”.

Photo by Mark Kineth Casindac/Kramthenik27, CC BY-SA 4.0

Co-sixth place (macro): The first of two consecutive photos from Philippine photographer Mark Kineth Casindac, also known as User:Kramthenik27, sees these two Apodynerus flavospinosus or potter wasps hanging onto some sort of stalk in Northern Negros Natural Park. The Wiki Loves Earth judges loved the colors on display in this shot, as well as the sharpness Mark Kineth Casindac was able to obtain on the small creatures.

Photo by Mark Kineth Casindac/Kramthenik27, CC BY-SA 4.0

Co-sixth place (macro): Mark Kineth Casindac’s second shot found two leaf-cutting cuckoo bees sitting face to face in the same park. The photographer noted that these bees are endemic to the Philippines, and they can be commonly found in grassy areas. “The composition is simple and clean, but well-structured,” one contest judge noted.

Photo by Mehmet Karaca/Mkrc85, CC BY-SA 4.0

Seventh place (macro): Another photo from Mehmet Karaca, the third-place macro winner, shows that enjoying the morning sun is absolutely not limited to the human race. This baby chameleon, which is evidently no bigger than a flower, is getting a few rays in Turkey’s Kapıçam Nature Park.

Photo by Dasrath Shrestha Beejukchhen, CC BY-SA 4.0

Eighth place (macro): We do not know why this Nepalese spotted deer is in full sprint. But no matter why it got moving, photographer Dasrath Shrestha Beejukchhen ultimately benefited from the deer’s leap to get onto the path running along the right side. One judge noticed that the dots on the side of the deer were stretched—an indicator of the speed at which it was moving.

Photo by Asker Ibne Firoz, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ninth place (macro): This is not your standard nature photo. In this shot, Asker Ibne Firoz sharply captures a stationary lineated barbet chick in its nest right alongside its fast-moving mother. Wiki Loves Earth’s judges applauded the technical skill on display in this photo, with one adding that Firoz managed to take “an artistic approach” that nevertheless “retained its educational potential.” Firoz found this scene at the National Botanical Garden in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Photo by Lukáš Kött/Luckhy86, CC BY-SA 4.0

Tenth place (macro): This river kingfisher has gotten lucky today: it just caught its next meal in the Poodří Protected Landscape Area of the Czech Republic. This is Lukáš Kött’s second photo to place in Wiki Loves Earth 2024’s winners; the judges were a fan of the varied colors, including the contrasting background, and the action implied in the shot.

Volunteer-led and organized, Wiki Loves Earth asks people to venture out into nearby natural areas. The contest’s definition of a natural area is intentionally broad, which helps ensure that anyone, anywhere, is able to participate. The photographers’ submitted work is uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, a media library that holds many of the photos used on Wikipedia. All of the content within that library is freely licensed; it can be used by anyone, for any purpose, with only a few restrictions.*

If you would like to submit your own photos for Wiki Loves Earth 2025 next year, keep an eye on wikilovesearth.org for organizing information and dates. You can also see the winning images from Wiki Loves Earth’s special nominations category of human rights and environment.

———

Post by Ed Erhart, Communications Specialist, Wikimedia Foundation.

*Please be sure to follow each image’s copyright tag. All of the images above, for instance, are available under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA license—you are free to share them for any reason so long as you give credit to the photographer and release any derivative images under the same copyright license.