National Geographic Russia Selects Best Photographers

The winners have been chosen in the 2014 Wildlife of Russia photo contest held by National Geographic Russia magazine and the Russian Geographic Society.

This year marks the fourth time the competition has been held. National Geographic Russia editors compiled a shortlist of 500 entries before the jury met for the final time to choose the winners. This time around, the submissions in the “Birds” and “Mammals” categories were the most impressive.

The jury members included National Geographic Russia editor-in-chief Alexander Grek, photography expert Sergei Gorshkov, National Geographic Russia chief photographer Andrei Kamenev, photographer and naturalist Nikoalai Zinovyov, photographer and Russian Geographic Society photo editor Ilya Melnikov, National Geographic senior photo editor Kim Hubbard and National Geographic local editions deputy director Darren Smith.

SanDisk sponsored the special contest category “A Story in Motion” and SanDisk Russia and CIS head Rustam Nesterovich took part in selecting the winner. In this category, the judges chose from among the photos that had received the most “likes” in voting on official SanDisk social network pages .

Following tradition, the names of the competition’s finalists and winners will be announced at the opening ceremony of the contest’s exhibition to be held in late December at the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val in Moscow. The grand prize winner will receive 300,000 rubles.