The World Press Photo 11 exhibition, presented by Canon and TNT, is showing at the Brisbane Powerhouse from now until Sunday the 26th June, 2011. The free exhibition features a selection of winning shots from the prestigious 2010 competition which received a record 108,059 entries from 5,691 professional photographers from 125 countries.

After having done so myself today, I can highly recommend spending an hour or two perusing the selection of inspiring shots from around the world, spread throughout one of Brisbane’s most spectacular multi-arts venues. A word of warning though, it’s probably not quite the family outing to take your young kids to. A good few of the powerful images, especially those on display in the Turbine Hall, are somewhat graphical in nature and are quite confronting for adults, let alone children.

Grab one of the limited free car parking spaces at Brisbane’s Powerhouse and check out the World Press Photo 11 exhibition between 9am-5pm on Mon-Fri, and 10am-4pm on the weekends.

As a taster, here’s some of the winning images you can expect to see in large format at the exhibition.

The following video titled “The City Limits” was shot over the course of 12 months and features stunning time-lapse footage captured in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Manhattan and Chicago, all set to the haunting tune “Time” by the incomparable composer “Hans Zimmer”, from the movie “Inception”.

For the punters out there, here’s the list of the lenses Dominic snapped onto the end of his Canon 5D MkII to put the footage together:

• Canon 14mm 2.8 II
• Canon 24mm 1.4 II
• Canon 135mm 2
• Canon 70-200 2.8 II

Be Inspired.

As someone who has a HUGE passion for travel photography, I would love to spend hours perusing the competition entries. I really hope the exhibition, unlikely a chance as it may be, makes the trip down to Australia sometime in 2011. In the meantime, here’s a taster of some of the amazing entries submitted this year.

Kicking things off (above) is a stunning entry featuring an adolescent brown bear hunting the salmon run in Alaska as captured by Eric Kruszewski (USA). The shot was awarded winner of the “New Talent 2010 – Sell It!” category.

For more images, check out the full gallery of winning entries on the “Travel Photographer of the Year” website.

This belief is no doubt a large influencing factor in the minds of the thousands of talented hopefuls currently submitting amazing images across the three broad categories People, Places & Nature, in the 2010 National Geographic Photography Contest.

Up for grabs is a $10,000 purse as well as the invaluable opportunity to have the winning image published in National Geographic magazine. With entries closing on November 30 at 9am, there’s about 10 days left for entrants to get in their submissions.

With eight weeks of entries already in, the following are some of my favourites from all three categories. The leading image for me thus far, however, is the photo I have led with in this post titled “Cockfight” by very talented photographer “Ario Wibisono”.

An award winning press/sports photographer for top news agencies and papers like Reuters, The Globe & Mail and The National Post, Mark’s impressive portfolio of images cover a wide and diverse range of subject matter as illustrated by the selection of his images below.

There’s a whole lot more inspirational stuff to feast your eyes upon over on his visual blog which you can find at: http://www.markblinch.com/blog/.

I spent a good couple of hours today reading right through his initial posts and thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. The theme and content of his Blog is pretty similar to what I present, so if you find my content at all entertaining or interesting in any way, make sure you add Joe’s site to your RSS reader or weekly “must-visit” list.

If for no other reason, keep an eye on HugeAwesome.com to be among the first to see Joe’s incredible travel images. The man certainly knows how to take stunning images, and he’s managed just in the past 12 months to snap a number of images (a couple of teasers below) that I could only dream of capturing!

Awesome work mate – congratulations on a fantastic release!

Shot by professional panoramic photographer Lee Casalena, the stunning image was captured from the peak of Lion’s Head, one of the components, along with Table Mountain, that makes up Cape Town’s dramatic skyline.

Having spent a lot of time in Cape Town myself back in 2002, I know what the view is like from that very spot during the day, but I had no idea just how spectacular it would be at night under a full moon.

Explore the 360 panoramic image for yourself here: http://leecasalena.com/fullmoonhike.swf

Set to a track called “Mary’s Song” by Nick Cave from the movie soundtrack of the “Assassination of Jesse James”, the 2:52 video is quite spectacular and features a beautiful moon-rise sequence about 52 seconds in which is a must-see!

You can check out more of Simon’s fantastic work on his website, Flickr account or Vimeo account.

This year’s overall winner, Chris Burkard’s inspirational golden light surfing image was revealed at the end of August in a free exhibition held at Dublin’s Trinity College in Ireland.

Winners were selected in a number of categories which covered the following image subjects:

Below are just a few of the category winning images shot by some clearly talented photographers from around the world:

Marcel Lämmerhirt – Category Winner 2010: Wings

Stuart Gibson – Category Winner 2010: Energy

Adam Kokot – Category Winner 2010: Spirit

You can check out the 50 finalists and all of the category winners, as well as vote for your favourite image in the competition’s “People’s Choice” award by visiting the Red Bull Illume website at: www.redbullillume.com

Described simply as “…visions of the world as seen through a photographer’s eye.”, the series consists of a growing number of extraordinary images from both the natural and industrial worlds. Below is a few of my favourites from the collection, but I urge anyone who enjoys and appreciates first-class photography to check out the full series which you can find on the National Geographic Magazine website.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—Blankets of clouds soften a sunset over Guanabara Bay and suspend beachgoers and surrounding mountains in a moment of ethereal light.
[Image: Izan Peteterle]

Pusztaszer, Hungary—Two herons fight over a fish snatched from a hole in an ice-covered lake. Neither bird won. During the quarrel the fish fell to the ice, and another hungry heron snagged the catch.
[Image: Bence Mate]

Pike National Forest, Colorado—A constellation of blazes dots Grouse Mountain. The fire, which scorched more than 2,300 acres (931 hectares) in a week in April, was the first major fire of Colorado’s 2002 season, the state’s worst on record.
[Image: Thomas Cooper]

Uch Sharif, Pakistan—A man kneels by a humble mud tomb, shadowed by ruins of Sufi shrines. Wracked by floods nearly 200 years ago, the shrines were once the heart of a famed center of Islamic learning.
[Image: Aaron Huey]

Brazil—A glittering, feather-swathed dancer rides a huge hummingbird in Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival parade competition. She is one of thousands of Beija-Flor samba school members who captured the 2007 championship.
[Image: Jorge Sanez]

Bemaraha National Park, Madagascar—Rocks turned to razors, eroded limestone pinnacles rise 300-plus feet (91.4 meters) from the forest floor of this park—challenging researchers who study the island’s rare and endangered species.
[Image: Olivier Grunewald]

Aachen, Germany—Skidding from a full canter to a cloud-of-dust stop, horse and rider display a muscular flash of Old West skill at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany. First prize in the individual reining competition: $12,000.
[Image: Rolf Vennenbernd]

South Africa—Green tree pythons coil when comfortable. Though this snake is a pet in Pretoria, the species is native to northern Australia and New Guinea. In the wild its coloration lends cover for a life spent mostly in trees.
[Image: Martin Harvey]

Greenland—An iceberg reveals a glimpse of the southern Greenland town of Narsaq. A nearby glacier births a steady supply of bergs that jostle off the settlement’s shores year-round.
[Image: Nick Cobbing]

Quebec Province, Canada—Wings outstretched, talons flared, and ears tuned to the faintest scrabblings of a rodent hidden under winter’s white carpet, a snowy owl prepares to pounce.
[Image: Vincent Munier]

Shodo Shima, Japan—Huddled for warmth, macaques press their bodies into a vast ball of fur. The monkeys’ relaxed social hierarchy allows high- and low-ranking individuals to share the same tight space.
[Image: Yukihiro Fukuda]

Germany—The see-through skin of an inch-long glass frog reveals her eggs. Native to Venezuela, the frogs lay eggs in bushes and trees overhanging streams. Tadpoles hatch, then tumble into the current to be swept away.
[Image: Heidi Koch]

United States—A red-clay spray showers spectators at the mud-pit belly flop, highlight of the annual Summer Redneck Games in East Dublin, Georgia. Other events include a hubcap-discus throw and bobbing for pigs’ feet.
[Image: Sol Neelman]

United States—A kayaker plunges 70 feet into winter water at Washington State’s Outlet Falls. His January 2009 descent was one of only five tallied on the Klickitat River tributary, here swollen by floods and sallow from runoff.
[Image: Jed Weingarten]

Philippines—Children gaze at the storybook sight of a partial solar eclipse over Manila Bay. The result of a syzygy—an instance when the Earth, moon, and sun are aligned—it was visible on parts of four continents.
[Image: Gil Nartea]

Pakistan—Women and children await registration and relief at the Jalozai refugee camp. Since last summer, some one million Pakistanis have fled the fighting between the military and militants near the Afghan border.
[Image: Emilio Morenatti]

United States—A brown tornado towers perhaps 4,000 feet above the parched plains of Kansas. In 2007 the state set a U.S. record, tallying 141 twisters. The mark was short-lived, though: 187 tore through in 2008.
[Image: Jim Reed]

Zambia—A lone bull elephant breakfasts at first light near the precipice of Victoria Falls. With the Zambezi River near its seasonal ebb, once submerged walkways—and fresh foraging possibilities—present themselves.
[Image: Marsel van Oosten]

United Arab Emirates—From the top of the world’s tallest building—the 164-story, 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa—an economic history of Dubai is visible. Dense development reflects the recent boom; open spaces are remnants of an earlier era.
[Image: Samar Jodha]

Iceland—Lightning veins the Eyjafjallajökull volcano’s ash plume, which roiled air travel this spring. Such “dirty thunderstorms” may occur when rock and ice particles loosed by exploding magma collide in the atmosphere.
[Image: Sigurdur Hrafn Stefnisson]

Germany—Upside-down thrill seekers ride the Top Spin at Munich’s 176th Oktoberfest. Despite terrorist threats, the 16-day beer festival—the largest fair in the world—drew 5.7 million people last year.
[Image: Miguel Villagran]

United Arab Emirates—In Dubai natural and man-made electricity illuminate the night. As jagged needles of lightning darn an overcast sky, the sail-shaped, 1,053-foot-tall Burj al Arab hotel glows green on the edge of the Persian Gulf.
[Image: Maxim Shatrov]