“The Gate” by Filip Hrebenda
DJI has announced the winners of the 2025 DJI SkyPixel photo and video competition, which ran from November 27, 2025, to Mar 10, 2026, and offered 53 different awards with prizes totaling almost $200,000.
SkyPixel, DJI’s annual photo and video competition focused on content creation with drones and gimbals, is now in its 11th year and attracted nearly 95,000 submissions from 96 countries and regions, which the company says reflects the growing global community of creators using aerial and handheld imaging technology to tell powerful visual stories.
The photo above was awarded the Annual Best Photo Prize in the Photography Category. Titled “The Gate,” the photo was captured by Filip Hrebenda on a DJI Mavic 3 Pro.
“Captured in the far north of Norway during the autumn of 2025, this photograph was taken in a remote and extremely difficult-to-reach location. At sunrise, the landscape was covered by dense fog that filled the valleys and concealed the dramatic terrain. After a demanding ascent, we finally rose above the cloud layer, revealing this surreal and almost otherworldly view,” Hrebenda writes. “The natural stone arch, resembling a monumental gate carved by time, stands suspended above a deep valley, surrounded by rugged cliffs and distant mountain silhouettes emerging from the sea of mist. The lone figure on the rock emphasizes the scale and raw beauty of the landscape. To capture this composition, finding the perfect perspective was essential. This was made possible with the help of a DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone, which allowed me to position the camera precisely and reveal the full geometry of this extraordinary natural formation.”
DJI also called out two other photos from the Annual Top 10 Photo winners: “Carpet Fields” by F. Dilek Yurdakul and “Smoking Skull” by a photographer who goes simply by Daniel. The former was taken in Döşemealtı, Antalya, in 2023 with a DJI Mavic 2 Pro, while the latter was captured over the eruption of Fagradalsfjall in Iceland in 2021 on a DJI Air 3S.
“Smoking Skull” by Daniel
“Carpet Fields” by F. Dilek Yurdakul
On the video side, the Annual Best Video Prize (Aerial) was awarded to the film “Africa Unseen” by Ellis van Jason, and is a visual showcase of Africa’s landscape and wildlife.
“To create the film, the creator journeyed deep into the African wilderness using a comprehensive suite of DJI imaging tools, including DJI Action 5 Pro, Avata 2, Inspire 3, Mavic 3 Pro, Ronin 4D, RS 4 Pro, and DJI Focus Pro. Drawing from over 35TB of cinematic-grade 8K footage, he distilled years of filmmaking expertise, documentary experience, and personal passion into a tightly crafted seven-minute visual narrative,” DJI says.
The Annual Best Video (Handheld) was awarded to the film, “Elsewhere The Gaze Can Always Arrive” by AYANG.
The full spate of winners, including the full top 10 photography selections, can be seen on DJI’s SkyPixel site.
Image credits: All photos individually credited and provided courtesy of DJI SkyPixel