Lifestyle

15 beautiful images from the finalists of Smithsonian Magazine's annual photo contest

Courtney Verrill

2016-03-02T20:40:16Z

Blankets are spread out for summer movie night at Bryant Park in Manhattan, New York. Lauren Pond/The Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest

The judges of Smithsonian's photo contest have announced the finalists for 2015. The 13th annual contest had over 460,000 submissions from photographers in 168 different countries.

The categories include the American experience, natural world, travel, sustainable travel, people, mobile, and altered images. Finalists were selected by the photo teams at Smithsonian magazine and Smithsonian.com.

You can vote here for the Readers' Choice winner. The winners will be announced at the end of March.

Below are just some of the beautiful images from the finalists of the contest.

A woman looks out of a bus window in Bulgaria.

A yellow-headed male jawfish holds his babies in his mouth. The yellow-headed males, rather than the females, are responsible for carrying the babies.

A girl rides the train in India.

Wildebeest jump into a river in Kenya.

The Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in Sêrtar, China, is the biggest Buddhist settlement in the world, home to 40,000 monks and nuns.

A man reads the Koran, Islam's holy book, during the holy month of Ramadan at a mosque in Manama, Bahrain.

Gary Fiedler took this shot while canoeing under the Aurora borealis in Canada.

Smithsonian Mag photo contest — Finalist for Sustainable travel. Gary Fiedler/The Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest

A devotee is helped up during The Way of The Cross in the Philippines.

Blankets are spread out for summer movie night at Bryant Park in Manhattan, New York.

A woman walks in front of a red wall in China.

These are the beginning stages of a pool ball knobstopper being made for Hester & Cook Design Group.

Swimmers compete in the La Jolla Rough Water Swim in California.

Volcanic material flows from Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra, Indonesia.

A man rides a bike in front of Bird's Nest, the stadium built for the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing.

A man wrestles a hog in Wisconsin.

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