5 winners take top prizes in 2026 Siena Drone Photo Awards

George Steinmetz’s photograph of a stranding LNG tanker won the overall prize at the 2026 Siena Drone Photo Awards.

The image shows the vessel sitting on mudflats off the coast of Bangladesh, north of Chattogram. Workers appear as small figures moving around the partially dismantled steel hull. Steinmetz titled the work “Shipbreaking on the mudflats, Bay of Bengal.” He flew the drone along a 13-mile coastal strip to find a ship in a specific state of disassembly. The industry faces criticism from environmental groups for pollution and working conditions. Local photographers warned Steinmetz that access would be difficult. He eventually convinced the tanker’s owner to allow the shoot. He spent several days returning to the site as tides shifted to capture the vessel at low tide.

Steinmetz first dreamed of aerial photography in 1979 after graduating from Stanford with a geophysics degree. He hitchhiked across Africa on truck roofs. In 1996, National Geographic funded a Sahara project. He learned to fly a motorized paraglider for that work. He described the sensation as sitting on the front of a spoon. Drones have since replaced the paraglider in his workflow.

Dilek Yurdakul won first place in the People category with a shot of carpets drying in southern Turkey. The image was taken in the Döşemealtı district of Antalya. Yurdakul traveled six hours from Ankara in high heat to reach the site. The fields contained thousands of handmade rugs and kilims spread out to fade under the Mediterranean sun. This process gives the rugs their traditional muted colors. Yurdakul is an Ankara-based documentary photographer and lawyer. She used the drone to show the scale of the landscape and the labor involved. She described the aerial view as a visual metaphor for invisible labor.

Colas Decloitre received a commendation in the Nature category for a shot of Tumpak Sewu in East Java, Indonesia. The horseshoe-shaped waterfall spills over cliffs at sunrise. Decloitre, a Boston-based photographer, intended to frame the waterfall with Mount Semeru in the background. The volcano was actively erupting, glowing red with ash. Decloitre noted that a drone is the only way to align the waterfall and the volcano in a single frame from that specific angle.

Isabella Tabacchi, an Italy-based photographer, received two commendations in the Nature category. Her photo “The Last Ember” shows a volcanic cone in the Argentine Puna. The reddish color comes from iron-bearing minerals in the rock. The surrounding dark terrain is hardened lava. Tabacchi took the photo during an exploratory flight, not during the preferred golden hour. She chose the image for its geometry and the perspective it offered over the volcanic wilderness. Her second commendation, “Alien Land,” depicts geological patterns in Mangystau, Kazakhstan. The formations result from millions of years of sediment deposition and erosion.

Holly Kirkland’s photo “What Lies Beneath” also earned a commendation in the Nature category. The image shows lesser flamingos flying over Lake Natron near the Tanzania-Kenya border. The birds appear as small specks against the water. Kirkland is a former kindergarten teacher from Delaware and a self-taught photographer. She plans to move to Kenya next year to build more aerial work. She did not use a drone for this shot. She flew in a helicopter with the door open and used a Sony A1 Mark II with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Lake Natron is a soda lake with high concentrations of sodium carbonate. The caustic waters would burn the skin of most animals. Flamingos have adapted with leathery skin and salt glands to survive there.

The Siena Drone Photo Awards accept other aerial photography entries in the drone category. The 2026 winners focus on the Global South. The awards reveal landscapes and livelihoods that are difficult to see from the ground. The competition includes categories for People and Nature. The overall winner is selected from the top entries across all categories.