National Geographic, American-based magazine dedicated to the exploration of world and nature, annually chooses and awards the best international amateur nature photographs. The National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year contest aims to tell and illustrate our Planet’s environment and the species it is home to, while exposing the threats they’re facing too often due to humanity.

In Sydney, Australia, the Pacific Ocean at high tide breaks over a natural rock pool enlarged in the 1930s. Avoiding the crowds at the city’s many beaches, a local swims laps © Todd Kennedy/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

Shortly before twilight in Kalapana, Hawai’i, a fragment of the cooled lava tube broke away, leaving the molten rock to fan in a fiery spray for less than half an hour before returning to a steady flow © Karim Iliya/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

Blue-filtered strobe lights stimulate fluorescent pigments in the clear tentacles of a tube-dwelling anemone in Hood Canal, Washington © Jim Obester/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

Snow-covered metasequoia trees, also called dawn redwoods, interlace over a road in Takashima, Japan © Takahiro Bessho, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

Sunlight glances off mineral strata of different colors in Dushanzi Grand Canyon, China © Yuhan Liao, 2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

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Typically a shy species, a Caribbean reef shark investigates a remote-triggered camera in Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen marine protected area © Shane Gross/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

An adult Caribbean pink flamingo feeds a chick in Yucatán, Mexico. Both parents alternate feeding chicks, at first with a liquid baby food called crop milk, and then with regurgitated food © Alejandro Prieto/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

On the flanks of Kilauea Volcano, Hawai’i, the world’s only lava ocean entry spills molten rock into the Pacific Ocean. After erupting in early 2016, the lava flow took about two months to reach the sea, six miles away © Greg C./2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

A summer thunderstorm unleashes lightning on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon © Mike Olbinski Photography/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

Buoyed by the Gulf Stream, a flying fish arcs through the night-dark water five miles off Palm Beach, Florida © Michael Patrick O'Neill/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

Two grey herons spar as a white-tailed eagle looks on in Hungary © Bence Mate/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

Green vegetation blooms at the river’s edge, or riparian, zone of a meandering canyon in Utah © David Swindler/2017 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

National Geographic picks the most spectacular nature photos of 2017

Ambiente — di Camilla Soldati

National Geographic has awarded the best nature photography from all over the world, to make us discover, with more conscious eyes, the wonders surrounding us. Here are all the winning photos.