Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners
Winner: Grand Prize and Nature
An Indochinese tigress named Busaba shakes herself dry after a swim at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand. Titled "The Explosion!" the photo was the winning entry in the 2012 National Geographic Photo Contest.
The Indochinese tiger—found in parts of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia—is one of six tiger subspecies, all of which are endangered or critically endangered. It's estimated that only about 350 Indochinese tigers exist in the wild.
Winner: Places
A full moon illuminates the Matterhorn peak near Zermatt, Switzerland, in the winning image in the contest's Places category.
Full moons occur every 29.5 days or so as the moon moves to the side of Earth directly opposite the sun, reflecting the sun's rays off its full face and appearing as a brilliant, perfectly circular disk.
Winner: People
A picture of women scavenging refuse from a landfill in Dandora, Kenya, is the winning image in the People category of the National Geographic Photo Contest.
The Dandora landfill, located in eastern Nairobi, is one of the largest in Africa.
