The Best Drone Photos and Videos of the Year | SkyPixel’s 9th Annual Contest Winners

BY Zacc Dukowitz

27 March 2024

SkyPixel, DJI’s drone photo/video community, had it’s first contest back in 2016 to commemorate DJI’s 10th anniversary.

To put that in perspective, 2016 was the same year the FAA released the Part 107 rules.

Every year since it launched the contest has featured some of the top drone photos and videos in the world. And ever year, the competition has gotten more and more intense.

For this year’s 9th annual contest, SkyPixel received 130,000 submissions—double the number it got the year before, and more than quadruple the number from just two years ago. (SkyPixel received 30,000 submissions in 2022.)

Keep reading to see the winners of the SkyPixel 9th Annual Photo & Video Contest.

Prizes

Wondering what the winners got this year? Here are the prizes.

Grand Prize

This year, the two Grand Prize winners got over $14,000 in prizes, including an Inspire 3 in the video category a Hasselblad X2D 100C in the photo category.

The two winners will also be signed as official SkyPixel Creators and receive a trophy and an award certificate to honor their achievement.

Top 10 Prizes

Beyond the Grand Prize winners, the SkyPixel contest recognizes 10 winners (without ranking them) for both photo and video across 10 different categories, as well as giving awards for the top 10 nominated entries and the top 10 People Choice winners

Here’s what each group gets:

Top 10 Video and Top 10 Photo winners will each receive the DJI Mavic 3 Pro Fly More Combo (DJI RC), a trophy, and award certificate, with a total value of USD $2,999.
The 10 Nominated Prizes will each receive the Osmo Action 4 Adventure Combo and award certificate, with a total value of USD $399.
The 10 People’s Choice Prizes will each receive the Osmo Mobile 6 and award certificate, with a total value of USD $149.

Grand Prize

SkyPixel Video of the Year

“Haines Alaska through the Eyes of Luke Bredar” by SkyPixel contributor Luke Bredar.

Alaska has long been a magnet for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity of the Last Frontier will patch all the holes in their loves. The bush is an unforgiving place, however, that care nothing for hope or longing.

Haines Alaska, Through The Eyes of Luke Bredar

Watch this video on YouTube

SkyPixel Photograph of the Year

“Mongolian Yurt” by SkyPixel contributor Daolai.

It was a morning after snow. Herdsmen gathered around the yurts and made preparations for the upcoming grassland ice and snow Naadam event. The scene at that time was very picturesque and full of life, natural and vivid.

9th Annual Contest Top 10 Photo Prizes

The top 10 prize winners are listed in no particular order—that is, there’s no 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place and so on. Rather, all winners are grouped equally in the top 10.

This year’s winners fell into four categories: Nature, Sport, Portrait, Architecture. There was no cap or quota for each category, so, for example, you might notice that there are five winning photos in the Nature category but only one in the Portrait category.

Note: There are only nine photos listed here because the 10th photo is the Grand Prize winner, which is shown above.

“Riding on the Waves”

Category: Sport
Creator: SkyPixel contributor Parker.

“Movement and Stilness”

Category: Architecture
Creator: SkyPixel contributor Patrick Wong

“Bird’s eye view on Iceland”

Category: Nature
Creator: SkyPixel contributor pawelzygmunt

“Snow Music”

Category: Sport
Creator: SkyPixel contributor Guofu

“Eye in the Lake”

Category: Nature
Creator: SkyPixel contributor ekrem_sahin07

“Silence”

Category: Portrait
Creator: SkyPixel contributor Nguyen Khanh Vu Khoa

“Hunting Together”

Category: Nature
Creator: SkyPixel contributor Pham Huy Trung

“Tree of Life”

Category: Nature
Creator: SkyPixel contributor Isabella Tabacchi

“Hot Air Balloon Floating over Trees in Winter”

Category: Nature
Creator: SkyPixel contributor Jonas Hoffman

9th Annual Contest Top 10 Video Prizes

Like the top 10 photos, the top 10 video prize winners are listed in no particular order—that is, there’s no 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place and so on. Rather, all winners are grouped equally in the top 10.

This year’s winners fell into three categories: Sport, Nature, City, Travel. Just like for the photo prizes, there’s no cap or quota for each category—in fact, seven of the 10 videos fell under the Nature category.

Note: There are only nine videos listed here because the 10th video is the Grand Prize winner, which is shown above. Where possible we’ve embedded the winning video. If embedding wasn’t an option, we’ve linked to the video on the SkyPixel site.