Drones have changed the way we look at the world, and if you’ve ever flown one you’ll know that a crowd of onlookers usually gathers to marvel at the technology.

We hope you’re rocking the DJI Mavic Pro – always gets all the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’.

Usually it’s videos that we feature, but given the quality of the winners of this year’s International Drone Photography Contest we’ll make an exception.

The competition, run by Nat Geo and Dronestagram (a drone photography sharing website and community), recently announced the results. There were four categories open for submission – “urban”, “people”, “nature” and “creativity” – and The South African have the pick of the bunch.

1st place, People: “End of the line” by Martin Sanchez

2nd place, People: “Waterlily” by helios1412

1st place, Nature: “Provence, summer trim” by jcourtial

2nd place, Nature: “Infinite road to Transylvania” by Calin Stan

1st place, Urban: “Concrete jungle” by Bachirm

2nd place, Urban: “Dawn on mercury tower” by Alexeygo

In the “creativity” there is no ranking, but we’ll look at two real gems.

This first one below is taken LukeMaximoBell in South Africa. He said:

It was a cold early morning in South Africa on a farm near Stellenbosch. Two cows drinking from a nearby dam caught my eye when I saw their long shadows. I launched my drone to capture the scene in a way impossible with any other type of camera.

Nailed it:

One more – “Ugo le marin” taken by rga in France:

As I watched my children playing on the beach and drawing in the sand I had the idea of using the sand as a large sheet of paper. So my two sons and myself drew a scene related to the sea, on the image you can see my oldest son.

Sailing:

Damn son, the gauntlet has been laid down.

South Africans have nothing to complain about, given how #blessed we are with natural beauty, so grab your weapon of choice and do us proud.

[source:thesouthafrican]