The Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition winners have been announced - and the results list is packed full of science, landscape and wildlife photography that will blow you away. The Royal Society's competition "celebrates the power of photography in capturing scientific phenomena happening all around us, and the role great images play in making science accessible to a wide audience."
The competition opened in early 2019, with the Royal Society asking scientists from all around the world to send in their photos in the categories of Astronomy, Behavior, Earth Science and Climatology, Ecology and Environmental Science, and Micro-imaging. They were flooded with hundreds of incredible images ranging from dramatic astro vistas to jaw-dropping wildlife photography.
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The judges chose lucky photographer Aleks Labuda in the Micro-imaging category as their pick for the winner of the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition. His image, 'Quantum Droplets', was chosen as "in the best tradition of great science photos, the viewer is simultaneously bewildered by the image and then astounded by the story behind it”.
Aleks Labuda says, "This photograph represents experimental proof of the theoretical work in the field of hydrodynamic quantum analogs. These silicone oil droplets are bouncing indefinitely above a vibrating pool of silicone oil at 15 Hz… This behavior provides measurable and intuitive insight into the mystery of particle-wave duality".
Labuda captured this fascinating image using a Nikon D700 with a 105mm focal length set to 1/200mm and ISO 200. However, he wasn't the only photographer who impressed the judges. Other category winners include Mikhail Kapychka, who captured a lunar halo over a forest in Belarus, and Morgan Bennett-Smith, who shot some beautiful wildlife photography depicting a juvenile Red Sea clownfish.
You can check out more the incredible science, landscape and wildlife photography below or at the Royal Society's website. If you're interested in submitting your own work in 2020, keep a keen eye on their competition page.
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