Are you in the Top 101 for 2026? 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!
If you've ever looked out of an aircraft window at the distant landscape (or seascape) below, you'll understand why photographers are mesmerised by this viewpoint. Whether photographing mountains, cities, seascape or deserts, there is something very special about an aerial perspective that is simply enchanting.
And this is what drives us at the International Aerial Photographer of the Year award - to encourage and share the wonders of aerial photography. In fact, you don't have to be sitting in a plane or a helicopter, we are just as happy with photographs taken from the top of tall buildings or mountains - anything that presents an aerial outlook.
This is our second competition and once again, we are in awe of the work presented by our entrants. The only rules we have is that all entries must be created by a real person and no AI that generates new content is permitted. And by rewarding the Top 101 entries, the judges can applaud a diverse range of subject, techniques and approaches. Being accepted into the Top 101 is the key
However, we still have our prizes with a big congratulations to our overall winner, Azim Khan Ronnie.
The ten 2026 prize winners are:
Photographer of the Year: Azim Khan Ronnie, Bangladesh
Second Place: Chin Leong Teo, Singapore
Third Place: Barbara Brown, Australia
Photograph of the Year: Vitaly Golovatyuk, Russian Federation
Second Place: Sanghamitra Sarkar, India
Third Place: Kah-Wai Lin, United States
Special Award Winners:
Chengming Liu, United States (Above Mountain)
Aleksandra Wilk, Germany (Above Snow)
Savadmon Avalachamveettil, Ireland (Above Water)
A. J. Rich, United States (Chairman’s Choice)
This is our second award with 1587 entries from around the globe. To reach the Top 101 and the book, you needed at least a score of 84.33. Congratulations to all the Top 101 entrants who reached it.
Finally, entrants like to know how they fared, not just with their own entry scores, but within the competition as a whole. The following graph shows the spread of entry scores.
Thanks to our three judges, Tom Hegen, Isabella Tabacchi and Joanna Steidle for their invaluable contributions.
We hope you enjoy the world’s best aerial photographs for 2026.
(NB Entrants have now received 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
The FlipBook version of the awards book is below - refresh the page if it doesn't load. If you are in the book, you have until 31 July to notify us of any changes needed to your entry. Note, we have taken the information directly from your entry form, so it should be okay, but sometimes different character sets can create little issues, so please let us know! Email
