The Drone Photo Awards Have Announced Their Winners Of 2022, And Here Are The 30 Best Photos

Bored Panda reached out to the Founder and Art Director Luca Venturi who is in charge of the whole SIENA awards. We were wondering how the overall winner of the competition was picked, and here's what Luca told us, "The overall winner has been chosen by the Judging Panel after 3 rounds of judgment."

Choosing a winner was no easy feat given that the Drone Awards was quite a popular competition among photographers. "We received about 8 thousand images submitted by 2624 participants from 116 countries," Venturi told us.

No one can deny that in recent years aerial photography has been on the rise, and the founder of the awards wholeheartedly agrees with the statement as well. "We think that aerial photography is still increasing thanks to the different perspective it is able to show," Venturi said to Bored Panda. The art director also told us a little bit about the main goal of the Drone Photo Awards 2022, "We want to highlight a different photographic genre deliberately separated from being compared to traditional photography."

We think that without any doubt, organizing a competition on this scale must not have been easy, and to prove the said statement, Luca gave us an overall timeline of how long it takes to organize something like that. "We are working hard all year in order to make our competitions huge events and the Siena Awards Festival a powerful celebration of photography. But we are really motivated and enthusiastic in order to reach our purposes. It all comes down to belief.

Working to make Siena the world capital of photography means being a vessel of feelings to create, in the ideal place, strong positive emotions, which are the ones that give joy. Because every human being needs to be moved/feel emotions to feel alive."

Given how many photographers from all over the world have participated in the contest, we hoped that Venturi could share a little secret with us as choosing favorites from over 8 thousand pictures must not have been easy for the judges. Bored Panda asked Luca if by any chance the judging team had any personal photos they really liked even if they didn’t make it to the final categories.

"I imagine yes, but we are only able to see the final results with the highest scores of the winning images and we do not have access to other info related to the other shots." Said the founder of the awards.

Lastly, we were wondering what kept the whole team motivated and inspired to keep organizing these competitions year after year, and here's what we have been told.

"This is our MISSION: Siena Awards is an independent project that aims to make Siena the world capital of photography. It is a great curator of quality events with a common denominator: the language of photography as a lifelong passion. Siena, a jewel of Italy, is the ideal place to realize this dream, as it has always been a city of art, with unique beauty and the ability to open its heart, its doors, and its creativity. A major international festival, Siena Awards includes three photographic awards of excellence and a series of events and exhibitions throughout the year for photographers all over the world: from the great names, to emerging talents, to enthusiasts, to visitors from around the world who love culture. Siena Awards is the exclusivity that becomes inclusive."