When there’s nothing to say, people often resort to talking about the weather. It’s the perfect small talk as, no matter who we are, we’re constantly affected by it - and we never seem to know exactly what’s coming, despite the prevalence of weather apps and reports.
The Standard Chartered Weather Photographer of the Year gives that banter some added impetus. Now in its tenth year, this is the environment on show, nature dressed for its close-up. The competition, run by the Royal Meteorological Society, received over 4,000 entries from 84 countries, all peering into that volatile theatre above our heads where light and air conspire to make drama.
This year’s winning image, The Gorgeous Ring by Geshuang Chen and Shuchang Dong, is a sight that seems almost mythological. Shot above China’s Lugu Lake, it captures a complete circular rainbow. Chen flew a drone through drizzle to 500m and caught the rainbow’s full, impossible circumference, the lake’s island floating like an emerald at its centre. It’s a photograph of patience, physics, and perfect alignment — a love letter from the sun to the earth, intercepted by a lens. They won a cash prize of £5,000 (R112,759).
Second place went to Britain’s Jadwiga Piasecka with Eunice III — a vision of the English Channel in a particularly uncharitable mood. From the shelter of Newhaven on the south coast of the UK, Piasecka captured Eunice’s tantrum as waves battered the seawall with the kind of drama the British like to call ‘a bit of weather’. “From my vantage point, I watched enormous waves battling against the sea wall, sending dramatic sprays of water high into the air... highlighting just how immense the storm’s fury truly was,” she says.
Third, Lukáš Gallo’s Sky Surfing — a Czech study of fluctus clouds curling like breaking waves. They form when air layers shear against each other, wind sculpting vapour into surf. It’s a photograph of turbulence made beautiful and oceanic.
In the mobile category, winner Kyaw Zay Yar Lin’s Fishing in the Raining Season, from Myanmar, shows a rush of rain and motion blur that makes you feel soaked just by looking.
Second place in the same category went to Tamás Kusza of Slovakia for Path to the Heart of the Storm, a cinematic self-portrait of courage: man versus tempest. “I knew a special moment was coming. I rode the dirt road far enough until I had to stop: the sight was almost paralysing. I put my bike down and took out my camera... Would I stay and capture the storm, or turn back? But I knew: I was always heading toward the storm,” he says.
In the Young Photographer section, twelve-year-old Adrian Cruz from the US turned a passenger window into a revelation. His Eruption of the Sky shows a thunderstorm glowing pink against the horizon.
A new Climate Category locates the competition in the present. Jonah Lange’s West Texas Special — a dust storm rolling across parched plains — looks biblical but is, depressingly, contemporary. Judge Philippa Drew called it “a good example of the extreme becoming the everyday”. Runner-up Maria del Pilar Trigo Bonnin from the Philippines captured Heading Home, a motorbike journey through Typhoon Rai’s aftermath, a reminder that climate change is already here.
The weather — a daily improvisation of light, air, and consequence — is beautiful, and ominous. But, as Professor Liz Bentley of the Royal Meteorological Society says, these images are “a reminder that vital action is needed”.
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