The Winners of Smithsonian Magazine’s 9th Photo Contest

Environmental photographer Matjaz Krivic accompanied a pair of journalist friends to Kenya last year in part to cover a story about former special forces soldiers training wilderness rangers on how to foil poachers.

This illegal hunting is one of the factors that has driven northern white rhinos like Najin, pictured here, to near extinction.

Prathamesh Ghadekar photographs weddings and other events as a career, but it’s the relationships among creatures some people prefer not to think about that truly excite him.

A friend of the photographer recommended a visit to this stunningly colorful office building on Odaiba, an artificial island in Japan’s Tokyo Bay.

Odaibia was built in the 19th century as a defense against naval attacks on Tokyo proper, but is now a shopping and entertainment destination.

Translating a dynamic form like dance into a static one like still photography requires more than just skill and good equipment.

It takes planning.

“Part of the trick was figuring out where they would be moving around,” says photographer Craig Lefebvre, who captured this photo the first time he saw the Indigenous Enterprise dance troupe perform at Tlaquepaque village in Sedona, Arizona—an arts and shopping destination dotted with trees and courtyards.

Yamuna Ghat provides pedestrian access to the sacred Yamuna River just opposite an island of undeveloped marsh.

It’s a popular site for reflection, and for birdwatching.

Sunil Choudhary goes there to spot the Siberian seagulls who can be found resting there between November and February.

“The dancer in the middle held that pose for a second while the other dancers were moving.

My shutter speed was very slow; half a second or something like that, so it got that effect where the central dancer is perfectly still and the rest are in this blurred movement.”

It’s a technique he has mastered through trial and error.

This image was captured on a “family milking night” three years ago, Stevens writes, when Harvest, the youngest of her three children with her husband Will (pictured), was 2 years old.

The curious boy — “Dad’s little shadow,” in Stevens’ words — wanted to know what was in the bucket.