Are you in the Top 101? There are two ways to find out! Look through the flipbook with the Top 101 entries at the bottom of this article. Or click on the Archive link in the menu above and select the current year!

Looking down on our subject produces a novel, intriguing and sometimes ambiguous perspective. Surely part of the appeal is that the view is new and different from what we see most of the time, walking around with our eyes 1.5 metres above the ground?

And photographers today are capturing some simply breathtaking views from above. Many are using modern drones equipped with high-resolution sensors, others are using more traditional (and more expensive) modes of transport, flying high above in planes, helicopters and even balloons.

After a decade of running the successful International Landscape Photographer of the Year awards, organisers Peter Eastway and David Evans noticed an increase in the number of stunning aerial photographs and wondered if there was room for a special competition dedicated to the art and practice of aerial photography. The answer is a resounding yes!

When designing an awards system, it can be tempting to include lots of rules and regulations, but such a structure can also limit an entrant’s imagination and creativity. We don’t want to do that. Instead, the approach behind the International Aerial Photographer of the Year is to accept all photographs with an aerial perspective and we’ll leave it up to the judges to determine what best represents a great aerial photograph. The only rule we have is that all entries must be created by a real person and no AI that generates new content is permitted.

No matter how educated and experienced a judging panel, they often express a range of very different opinions. Often a judge will personally think a tenth or fifty second place is equally impressive as first place and so our philosophy is to reward the ‘Top 101’ photographs each year. The larger collection means the judges can applaud photographs of all different types and genres, from drones to medium format, single capture and composites, abstract and breathtaking renditions of Mother Nature. Within our winners, you’ll find a diverse collection of aerial photographs.

However, we still have our prizes with a big congratulations to our overall winner, Joanna Steidle.

The ten 2025 prize winners are:

Photographer of the Year: Joanna Steidle, United States
Second Place: Daniel Viñé Garcia, Spain
Third Place: David Swindler, United States

Photograph of the Year: Ignacio Palacios, Australia
Second Place: Talor Stone, United States
Third Place: Thomas Vijayan, Canada

Special Award Winners:
Barbara Brown, Australia (Black and White)
Pål Hermansen, Norway (Drone)
Colin Leonhardt, Australia (Abstract)
Fabien Guittard, France (Chairman’s Choice)

This is our inaugural award and we exceeded our expectations with 1549 entries from around the globe. To reach the Top 101 and the book, you needed at least a score of 86.67. So a high bar indeed and congratulations to all the Top 101 entrants who reached it.

Finally, we know entrants like to know how they fared, not just with their entry score, but within the competition as a whole. The following graph shows the spread of entry scores.

Thanks to our three judges, Tom Hegen, Tom Putt and Isabella Tabacchi for their careful and thoughtful deliberations.

We hope you enjoy the world’s best aerial photographs for 2025.

(NB Entrants will receive an email outlining their results, or they can log into their account and review their results in the entry area.)

Peter Eastway and David Evans
Co-convenors
International Aerial Photographer of the Year Awards

And here's the preliminary flipbook so everyone can check the spelling of their name etc before we send it to the printer!