Beautiful photos: National Geographic Photo Contest winners 2014

Marc Henauer / National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest

Marko Korošec

A dramatic photo of a dramatic storm cloud formation is the winner of the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest 2014.

Selected from more than 18,000 entries, thebeautiful photograph, taken by Marko Korošec of Sezana, Slovenia, has been chosen as the grand-prize winner.

The prize is an eight-day National Geographic Expedition to Alaska's Inside Passage for two.

Shot near Julesburg, Colorado, the winning photo is titled "The Independence Day" because the spaceship-like cloud formation reminded Korosec of the 1996 movie.

"It's such a beautiful structure created by Mother Nature and dangerous at the same time," Korošec said. "I decided to submit this photo because it does look kind of surreal and gives a feeling of how small we are against nature."

"Each year our entrants up the ante," says Keith Bellows, National Geographic Traveler magazine editor-in-chief and National Geographic Travel senior vice president." Each year the quality of photos improves... What started as a contest that consisted of judging a relative handful of prints has grown into a digital colossus that has the staff energized around picking from a treasure trove of excellence."

This year's contest received more than 18,000 entries from photographers around the world. Contestants submitted photographs in four categories: Travel Portraits, Outdoor Scenes, Sense of Place and Spontaneous Moments.