Choosing the Winners of the 2015 National Geographic Photo Contest | National Geographic

[Music] Connection, energy, artistry, truth, originality, originality, originality. My name is Jesse Wender, and I’m a senior photo editor at National Geographic magazine.

An In Varma, I’m a contributing photographer to National Geographic magazine. David Guttenfelder, National Geographic photography fellow. We started with, I think, 1,000 pictures, and by the end of the day—no, no, no, no, we had to pick one.

I want to be surprised. You want to see a uniqueness in the photographer's vision. I like the truth, but I feel like truth for me is the ground that you stand on as a photographer.

It was very honest, and I think that it’ll capture people. It was just sort of the visceral sense of the strength of a tornado and seeing it so close. It challenged people's ideas about that part of the world.

It's a very proud picture, and it's done with dignity. Originality means you've seen the world in a way that the rest of us, if we were walking by, wouldn't have seen it. And that's something that makes a photograph stand out from [Music] another.