Capturing sunsets, shadows, and a backlit breakfast: Feast your eyes on our August contest winners

posted Monday, October 2, 2017 at 11:27 AM EDT

We love photographic variety in our Photo of the Day contest, and our monthly contest prize-winning images for August certainly have that. From a beautiful and well-timed Icelandic landscape at sunset, to a surreal and captivating composition of camel riders, as well as a decidedly different look at a white pelican enjoying breakfast, we're sure there's something of interest for our discerning readers to enjoy from these prize-winning images.

Of course, we also love gear variety, being a site devoted largely to the gear you all use, and our August winners have that as well. From the popular Fuji X-T20 to a Canon Rebel T5i (700D) over to a Nikon D500, the manufacturer variety is also on display. Of course, astute readers will notice that all of these are APS-C cameras, and that's also interesting in that it's fairly rare that a full frame model (or larger) is not represented in the Top 3 on any given month. (You'll need to go back to August of 2016 for the last time that happened, and it averages less than once per year.)

But enough about the gear.... let's get to the prize-winning images! Congratulations to the photographers who won prizes this month, and thanks to everyone who enters our contest.

First Prize • $300 gift certificate from Adorama

Almost Midnight by Neil R. Shapiro • Fuji X-T20

Second Prize • $200 gift certificate from Adorama

Shadow Art by Anindya Phani • Canon T5i (700D)

Third Prize • $100 gift certificate from Adorama

American White Pelican Having Breakfast by Dennis Anderson • Nikon D500

Additional Honors

Thor's Well by Carol Lynne Fowler • Canon 5D Mark III

Swallow Feeding Time by Julius Diaz AKA Koolpix • Nikon D5

• August Winners' Gallery •

Thanks to all photographers who enter our contest, and please keep the excellent submissions coming our way! Click any image above for a larger version and more information about the photograph.

[Editor's note: When voting for the monthly winners, the voting panel is only shown the printed images, and is not aware of the name of the photographers nor the camera models used for capture.]

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How to win:

For more about what our prize-winning photographers shoot with and why, straight from the source, please see this article. It's from a few years ago, but is still quite relavant today. And for those of you wanting to know more about our competition please visit this news story, which describes our contest and also offers some useful tips to help you succeed, and this story that warns you of the best ways to NOT succeed. To see the camera and exposure information for this month's winners, please click any image above, and to see winners from previous months, please visit our POTD winner's gallery.

[And if you're ready to enter now, just click here!]

On a related note, we've just started a new series of articles called "Reader Stories," where we turn the tables and let you, our readers, do the talking! We're interested in seeing more of the shots you're the happiest with, and in hearing just how you got them, or just hearing about your passions, interests and the gear you love! Intrigued? Please click here!