Where earth meets sky, where the terrestrial dissolves into patterns of pure artistry, there exists a realm of photography that transforms the mundane into the magnificent.
The inaugural International Aerial Photographer of the Year has unveiled a collection of images so breathtaking they seem to redefine our relationship with the planet beneath our feet… or rather, far below our soaring cameras.
2025 competition draw 1500 entries from around the globe by creators who show soaring visions of a new visual dimension.
An Oceanic Symphony is the crown’s jewel. From her base in the Hamptons, American drone pilot artist Joanna Steidle was awarded the grand prize for images that breath her love of ocean life.
This maritime poet wielding pixels like verses, captures Atlantic’s most intimate secrets with her aerial eye.
Her masterpiece, “Gateway,” reveals a spinner shark hunting in a school of menhaden bait fish, just when predator and prey dance in perfect choreography, creating a living portal in the sea’s surface.
“Aerial photography offers so many possibilities not yet explored”
Her words echoes the feelings of countless photographers. They discovered that drones bring not just height, but insight for their celestial visions.
The spinner shark’s dance through menhaden creates nature’s own mandala, a living geometry that speaks to the predator-prey ballet beneath the waves.
“Mother and Child” by Alvaro Herrero
A mother humpback whale and her newborn calf float in cerulean infinity, their bond transcending species as they exist in perfect harmony within the ocean’s embrace.
“Drifting in Space” by Gilad Topaz
Passengers onboard an icebreaker in the frozen Baltic Sea took a short break to swim, creating surreal punctuation marks of humanity against the endless white canvas of Arctic ice.
Each winning image represents a unique perspective of our world from magnificent heights.
Abstract landscapes that dissolve reality into pure form, wildlife interactions captured at the precise moment of drama and human settlements that appear as intricate tapestries when viewed from above.
These photos transcend mere documentation. It beats a meditation on cyclical nature of life itself, viewed from the heavens.
Genesis of flight: a history written in silver and light
Aerial photography’s lineage stretches back to humanity’s first successful attempts to conquer the skies.
In 1858, Parisian Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known as Nadar, captured the world’s first aerial photograph from a tethered balloon over the Bièvre Valley in France.
Though that pioneering image has been lost to time, its legacy soars eternal.
He’s was the first human eye to observe the world as birds do, translating through the alchemy of light and chemistry.
American Civil War witnessed the military potential of aerial reconnaissance, with photographers suspended in observation balloons, documenting battlefields from unprecedented heights.
These early pioneers, aerial dancers, suspended between earth and heaven, risked their life and limbfor perspectives that would reshape humanity’s understanding of geography, warfare and art.
The invention of powered flight in 1903 opened new chapters in this celestial story.
Suddenly, photographers could range far beyond the tethered limitations of a balloon, capturing sweeping vistas of coastlines, cities and wilderness with unprecedented freedom.
World War I accelerated history, as military reconnaissance demanded more sophisticated aerial imaging techniques.
20th century digital revolution transformed aerial photography from a specialised military and commercial practice into an accessible art form.
The 2010’s drone revolution truly democratised the skies, placing the power of flight into the hands of artists, hobbyists and visionaries worldwide.
Constellation of competitions
This boom didn’t go unnoticed by Peter Eastway and David Evans, organisers of International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards.
They also established another competition: International Aerial Photography of the Year.
These two exists within a rich ecosystem of world’s aerial celebrations.
The Siena Drone Photo Awards stands as the most established competition, featuring the best images since 2022, gathering thousands of photographers who transform ordinary landscapes into extraordinary art.
Other leading contests are Photo Drone Awards and International Visionography Awards with specialised categories celebrating unique artistic possibilities of aerial perspective.
Each competition brings its own aesthetic philosophy and criteria, yet all share a common recognition.
Height transforms sight, elevation provides revelation and the view from above offers perspectives unavailable to ground-bound observers.
What makes aerial photography so compelling lies not merely in its novelty, but in its capacity to reveal hidden patterns, secret geometries and unexpected relationships.
“Looking down produces a novel, intriguing and surprising poetic perspectives”
They transform familiar landscapes into abstract art, revealing the mathematical precision underlying natural chaos, exposing delicate interconnection of ecosystems hidden from human view.
2025 winners demonstrate this transformative power.
Marine photography reveals ocean ecosystems as living mandalas, their circular patterns speaking to universal principles of growth, predation and survival.
Wildlife photographers capture interactions invisible to ground-based observers, revealing behaviour patterns and spatial relationships that expand our understanding of animal kingdom.
Abstract aerial imagery dissolves boundaries between photography and painting, creating compositions where reality becomes secondary to pure visual poetry.
Landscape photographers discover that elevation transforms the familiar into fantastic, revealing agricultural patterns as geometric art, city layouts as circuit boards of human habitation and natural formations as sculptures carved by elemental forces across geological time.
They are capturing some simply breathtaking views from above, using modern drones equipped with high- resolution sensors.
Others use traditional transport,flying high above in planes, helicopters and even balloons.
This technological evolution promises greater artistic possibilities as camera sensors improve, flight times extend and autonomous systems enable increasingly sophisticated aerial choreography.
International Aerial Photographer of the Year 2025 represents a celebration of current achievements and a launching pad for future explorations.
With 1549 photographers from around the globe, this competition demonstrates global appetite for aerial artistry and increasingly sophisticated standards.
Standing at the threshold of new technological possibilities, from AI-assisted flight planning to hyperspectral imaging capabilities, aerial photography continues evolving from documentary practice to pure art.
Winners are endpoints and waypoints on a journey that began in 1858 Paris with 1858 Nadar’s balloon and continues toward horizons we have yet to imagine.
These creators give us new eyes with which to behold our planet, eyes soaring and dancing between earth and sky, transforming the ordinary world into realms of extraordinary beauty.
Aerial photographers have a promising future. Through their lenses, perspective is everything, height brings insight.
Sometimes, we must first learn to see from where we are not. In ascending, they help us all to rise.
We glimpse our world from above, transcending terrestrial limitations through technology, artistry and the eternal human desire to rise to heaven.
