The Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) is a hugely prestigious international photography competition, which has run annually now for 23 years. It always attracts a huge range of and number of entries (20k+ in 2025) from across the world. The winners are always truly inspirational, from wildlife, landscapes to people from all walks of life - the winners galleries are always such a joy to browse.
The 2025 winners were announced on the 25th January 2026, and the winners can be seen here: 2025 TPOTY Winners
I'm thrilled to announce that I have been awarded a winning place in the Rising Talent category of the 2025 edition of the Travel Photographer of the Year. This is a hugely competetive category, with excellent prizes, and I cannot be more thrilled to be a winner with the other four excellent winning photographers of this category.
I'd also like to wish a huge congratulations to the other winners of TPOTY awards this year. It was so thrilling watching the announcement live on the webinar with Chris Coe, the organier, and witnessing the absolutely incredible photography this year. Every year the bar seems to be set higher and higher.
2025 Travel Photographer of the Year - Rising Talent Winner!!!
Flight over Temple Island - Henley-on-Thames - England. A gaggle of geese takes flight over the River Thames in magical early morning mist.
The streets of Marrakech at night, with dynamic light and shadows, and a cat carefully passes in the distance. Marrakech, Morocco
The Long Shadow - Oxfordshire, England - Early morning mist sits around this bronze age burial mound, where the sunrise caset a long shadow into the mist, creating a truly iconic and magical scene.
The most exciting news for me is the Rising Talent Award. This category features an incredible prize for the 2025 edition - a fully mentored and coached photography trip to Sri Lanka.
I am absolutely thrilled to share that I have been selected as one of the five winners in this hotly contested category. As you can probably guess, this is an achievement I am so incredibly proud of and will be hugely beneficial for my photography journey. I will be heading to Sri Lanka courtesy of Sri Lanka Tourism and Jetwing Hotels, and I cannot thank the sponsors, organisers, and judges enough for this incredible opportunity.
For those that don’t know, I only started taking my photography 'seriously' around 3 years ago. In that time, I feel my work has improved dramatically, and the momentum has been building continuously. I’m now at a stage where I am ready to further progress my craft, and the mentoring, networking, and creative growth this TPOTY Rising Talent award offers will be invaluable.
The final selection process was rigorous, involving the submission of RAW files to verify integrity, alongside essay-style responses about my journey and ambitions. I am incredibly proud that my work and my story resonated with the panel, and I can't wait to get started.
To the left: I have included the three images the competiton chose to display from my six entered images. This includes The Long Shadow, Flight at Temple Island and Marrakech at Night.
My other entered images are shown below as part of my six image portfolio. I tried to demonstrate depth & breadth. This included both ground and aerial photography, with a mix of intimate, landscape, wildlife, street and 'travel' photographs.
I’d like to say a few words on how this process actually feels. The reality of photography competitions is often obscured by the highlights reel of social media, but the truth is they are incredibly competitive, and often quite anti-climatic. They often leave you with nothing. They often leave you disappointed. Yet, I’ve come to realise that the process itself - the curation, the sequencing, the submission - is a crucial part of my photography workflow now. It forces me to be selective. It forces me to be brutally self-critical. Regardless of the outcome, these are disciplines I find invaluable when entering major awards like TPOTY.
The standard today in competitions is so incredibly high; the sheer volume and quality of entries are off the charts. Browsing the historical galleries of TPOTY, WPY, NPOTY, or NLPA is a guilty pleasure of mine, and I take huge inspiration from those past winners. It has taught me that placing is rarely just about the single photograph; it is about the narrative - whether it is a series or a single photograph. It is about the story. For me, I like to explore a 'wildcard' element - that extra, intangible element that separates a lucky shot from a crafted, special image.
All this said, with every single competition I enter - this one included - I never expect anything. In fact, I plan for disappointment. I am my own biggest critic, and I actively list reasons in my mind beforehand why I won't place to protect myself from the bad news. On many occasion I am left with perhaps a RAW request, or perhaps nothing. Specifically for this competition (even though I was a finalist!), I convinced myself my entries wouldn't evoke enough 'travel' essence - or at least the traditional assumption of the term. There are no people in my portfolio, for one. I did explore my archive and ensured I did include shots from my own travels - shown above. This includes the trusty UK (of course), Vietnam, Morocco & Italy.
So, to have come through that rigorous selection process - despite my own doubts, despite my preparations for failure, and despite the incredible standard of my peers - leaves me absolutely elated. It is a reminder that sometimes, the critic in your head is wrong. I am walking away from this result feeling not just validated, but incredibly humble and ready to learn. It always is a surprise to be a winner, it takes days if not weeks to sink in.
The TPOTY Slow Planet Award
I was a finalist this year in the Slow Planet category with my photograph "Rower at Temple Island". This depicts a rower siezing the day in Henley-on-Thames, rowing solo along the Thames. They cut through the water as the mist rises, with the sunrise lighting the scene in beautiful warm tones.
The 2024 Edition of the Travel Photographer of the Year
Last year in the 2024 edition of the Travel Photographer of the Year, I was really pleased to have a portfolio selected as a shortlisted finalist for a series of Black & White landscape photographs from the Caledonian Forest in Scotland. These four images made the shortlist / finalist group for the Planet Earth - landscape, climate & water category.
There was an extremely heavy covering of snow tha transformed the beautiful ancient Caledonian Forest and landscape into a winter wonderland. The use of Black and White helped simplify these complex landscapes into a cohesive series, and I was thrilled to be a finalist!
I hope you enjoy these photographs.
Deep inside a Caledonian Forest Woodland, where ancient trees are covered in heavy snow looking towards the Cairngorm Mountains. Christopher Harrison - Travel Photographer of the Year 2024 - Finalist
Deep inside a Caledonian Forest Woodland, where ancient trees are covered in heavy snow. Christopher Harrison - Travel Photographer of the Year 2024 - Finalist
Deep inside a Caledonian Forest Woodland, where ancient trees are covered in heavy snow. Christopher Harrison - Travel Photographer of the Year 2024 - Finalist
