Stunning photographs get top military honors

(Image credit: Rachel Young/Military Visual Awards)

The winners of the 2019 Military Visual Awards have been announced, with US Air Force Reserve Technical Sergeant Chris Hibben taking the title of Photographer of the Year. Hibben, a reservist who in civilian life runs a TV production company, shot his winning portfolio of images during an eight-month deployment to the Horn of Africa, and during pre-deployment training exercises in the US. 

Winning portfolio

These are some of the images in Chris Hibben's winning portfolio:

(Image credit: Chris Hibben/Military Visual Awards)

(Image credit: Chris Hibben/Military Visual Awards)

(Image credit: Chris Hibben/Military Visual Awards)

(Image credit: Chris Hibben/Military Visual Awards)

(Image credit: Chris Hibben/Military Visual Awards)

Category winners

The 2019 competition saw the Military Visual Awards opened to service personnel from outside the United States for the first time, with the contest attracting more than 2,000 photos and videos from military photographers around the world.

The following are some of the 12 category winners in the competition…

Combat Documentation Operational category winner (Image credit: Hille Hillinga/Military Visual Awards)

Feature category winner (Image credit: Chris Williamson/Military Visual Awards)

Pictorial category winner (Image credit: Joseph Swafford/Military Visual Awards)

Combat Documentation Training category winner (Image credit: Rachel Young/Military Visual Awards)

To see the full gallery of winners and runners up go to the MVA website.

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Chris George

Chris George has worked on Digital Camera World since its launch in 2017. He has been writing about photography, mobile phones, video making and technology for over 30 years – and has edited numerous magazines including PhotoPlus, N-Photo, Digital Camera, Video Camera, and Professional Photography. 

His first serious camera was the iconic Olympus OM10, with which he won the title of Young Photographer of the Year - long before the advent of autofocus and memory cards. Today he uses a Nikon D800, a Fujifilm X-T1, a Sony A7, and his iPhone 15 Pro Max.

He has written about technology for countless publications and websites including The Sunday Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, Dorling Kindersley, What Cellphone, T3 and Techradar.