Award-Winning Photo Shows the Beauty of Iceland’s Geothermal Core
Pawel Zygmunt’s pictured mineral-rich pool in Iceland has concentric, vibrantly coloured rings that look like a dragon’s eye. It has an intense blue center — the pool’s equivalent of a ‘‘pupil’’ — and the visual effect from above the surface of the waternboth something serene, with soft contours, and alien, with hard edges.

His picture was among 18 finalists selected from the considerable number of entries in the annual contest, now in its 12th year. Open to photographers in the UK and Ireland, the competition in total offers six categories: Landscape, People, Wildlife, Food, City Life, and Portfolio. Zygmunt's photo took home the Landscape category.

Judges lauded the photo for the clever “trick-of-the-eye” effect, and how it makes the viewer wonder whether it’s an elephant’s eye, or a turtle’s eye, or something entirely different.

Photographer’s Background And Other Winners
Originally from Poland and now living in Ireland, Pawel Zygmunt started photography in 2015. His work has been published in various UK photography magazines and has been awarded in several international contests since then.
The competition’s grand prize was awarded to Justin Cliffe whose image of a woman and her great-granddaughter in northern Vietnam was the People category winner.