AP Photo/Gerry Broome
High winds blow sea foam into the air as a person walks across Jeanette's Pier in Nags Head, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012 as wind and rain from Hurricane Sandy move into the area. Governors from North Carolina, where steady rains were whipped by gusting winds Saturday night, to Connecticut declared states of emergency. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Sunday.
AFP/GettyImages
A woman crosses a flooded street on a row of tables in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province, May 29, 2012. China is hit by big summer rainfalls every year, as heavy downpours across large swathes of the country trigger flooding, landslides and other rain-related disasters.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
A ski patroller makes first tracks as he plows though the snow during a powder day off of the Peak Chair on Whistler mountain in Whistler, B.C., April 4, 2012. The ski resort has seen 74 cm of fresh snow in the past 48 hours and has had a total cumulative snowfall of 1343 cm to date for the season.
This is a selection of Smithsonian magazine’s 9th annual photo contest finalists. The contest has attracted over 14 thousand photographers from over 100 countries. The five categories include —The Natural World, Americana, People, Travel and Altered Images (for photographs that have been manipulated).
Smithsonian photo editors have selected 50 finalists, 10 in each category, which will be displayed on the Smithsonian website. Ultimately, the editors will select one winner in each category, as well as one grand prize winner. Readers are invited to select an additional winner by voting for Readers Choice for their favorite image on the site The voting period will be open from March 1-31, 2012. All photos © Smithsonian.com
Nimai Chandra Ghosh (Kolkata, India)
Photographed November 2009, West Bengal, India
Jamie Scarrow (Bruce, Canberra, Australia)
Photographed December 2011, Antarctica
Marcel van Balken (Amstelveen, Netherlands)
Photographed October 2010, Valencia, Spain
David Lazar (Brisbane, Australia)
Photographed February 2010, Kyaiktiyo, Myanmar
Nicholas Wiesnet (Garden Grove, California)
Photographed September 2011, Omo River Valley, Ethiopia
Ben Hattenbach (Los Angeles, California)
Photographed March 2011, northern Alaska
Brian Day (Oak Park, Michigan)
Photographed April 2011, Detroit, Michigan
Paolo Patruno (Bologna, Italy)
Photographed May 2011, Lilongwe, Malawi
Stephanie Fox (Mobile, Alabama)
Photographed March 2011, Mobile, Alabama
Donald Montemorra (Swampscott, Massachusetts)
Photographed July 2009, Katmai National Park, Alaska
Jamie Illian (Dallas, Texas)
Photographed April 2011, Ellsworth, Nebraska
Budi Prakasa (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Photographed August 2009, Jakarta, Indonesia
Jamie Scarrow (Bruce, Canberra, Australia)
Photographed November 2010, South Georgia
David Lazar (Brisbane, Australia)
Photographed January 2011, Inle Lake, Myanmar
Branko Stojanovic (Novi Sad, Serbia)
Photographed November 2011, Novi Sad, Serbia
REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
A pedestrian walks at a snow-covered park in Tokyo February 29, 2012. Tokyo has received a snowfall of about 2 cm (0.79 inches) on Wednesday. The unusual snowfall in February has caused more than 300 cases of snow-related traffic accidents in the city, local media reported.
