Aerial photos of shipbreaking, carpets, and volcanoes win 2026 Siena Drone Photo Awards

George Steinmetz won the top prize in the 2026 Siena Drone Photo Awards for an image titled Shipbreaking on the mudflats, Bay of Bengal. The photograph shows a large liquid natural gas tanker stranded on the mudflats off the coast of Bangladesh, its steel hull partially dismantled by workers.

Steinmetz, who lives in the United States, has long been interested in the shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh. Vessels from around the world are brought to this 13-mile coastal strip north of Chattogram, also known as Chittagong, to be broken down for materials. Steinmetz was working on a book project about the relationship between human populations and the environment when he decided to document the process.

Access to the sites was difficult because shipyard owners often view photographers with suspicion. Local photographers told Steinmetz that securing permission might be nearly impossible. He spent time surveying the coastline with his drone before finding the specific tanker he wanted to capture. He convinced the owner of the vessel to allow him to photograph it. The timing was important for the final image. Steinmetz waited for low tide so the mudflats would be exposed and workers would be visible around the hull. Their small size against the ship provided a sense of scale. He spent several days at the site, returning as the tides shifted and the workers continued to break the ship apart.

Steinmetz earned a degree in geophysics from Stanford University in 1979. He first became interested in aerial photography while hitchhiking across Africa in the late 1970s. In 1996, National Geographic funded an aerial photography project around the Sahara Desert. For that project, Steinmetz learned to fly a motorized paraglider. He described the experience as sitting on the front of a spoon. Drones have since changed how he works, allowing him to capture views that were previously difficult or expensive to achieve.

Dilek Yurdakul, an Ankara-based photographer and lawyer, won first place in the People section of the awards. Her photograph shows hundreds of handmade carpets spread across open fields in the Döşemealtı district of Antalya, in southern Türkiye. The carpets are left out in the sun for weeks or months to fade the colors into softer tones. Yurdakul traveled six hours from Ankara to capture the scene. She described the first sight as astonishing, noting that the fields were much larger than she had imagined. The aerial view shows the scale of the landscape and the labor involved in the traditional process. Yurdakul said the image serves as a visual metaphor for the often invisible labor that sustains everyday life.

Colas Decloitre, a drone photographer based in Boston, received a commendation in the Nature category for a photo of Tumpak Sewu waterfall in East Java, Indonesia. The image shows the horseshoe-shaped waterfall at sunrise with Mount Semeru erupting in the background. Decloitre had intended to capture the shape of the waterfall with the volcano behind it. He did not expect to catch the volcano in the middle of an eruption. He said the only way to align the waterfall and the volcano in a single frame was to use a drone, as the vantage point is not accessible from the ground.

Isabella Tabacchi, an Italy-based photographer, received two commendations in the Nature category. Her photograph titled The Last Ember shows a volcanic cone in the Argentine Puna, a high-altitude plateau in northwestern Argentina. The reddish color of the cone comes from iron-bearing minerals in the volcanic rock. Tabacchi captured the image during an exploratory flight while studying the landscape. She said the strength of the photograph comes from the shapes and geological history of the subject rather than dramatic light. Her second commendation, titled Alien Land, depicts sediment layers and erosion patterns in Mangystau, Kazakhstan. Tabacchi said her interest in the country began when she experienced turbulence while flying over it on a flight from Tokyo to Rome.

Holly Kirkland, a self-taught photographer from Delaware, received a commendation in the Nature category for a photo titled What Lies Beneath. The image shows lesser flamingos flying over Lake Natron, near the border of Tanzania and Kenya. The lake is part of the Rift Valley soda lake ecosystem, which has high concentrations of dissolved sodium carbonate. Kirkland took the photo from a helicopter using a Sony A1 Mark II camera with a 70-200mm lens. She is a former kindergarten teacher who plans to relocate to Kenya in the coming year to build a larger body of aerial work.