The winners of the photocontest The Speleo Photo of the Year 2012

This year there were 35 photographers from Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Spain, Brazil, USA, Swaziland, Indonezia, Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Rumunia, UK and Germany in the photo contest  The Speleo Photo of The Year 2012. They submitted 267 photos that were evaluated by the jury and the visitors of the internet galery. The members of the jury were:

1. Vidmantas Balkūnas, Lithuania, the photojournalist of the daily newspaper "Lietuvos rytas" and news portal "lrytas.lt"
2. Stanislav Kotarba, Poland, an experienced caver and cave photographer
3. Tomas Rekašius, Lithuania, the leader of the caving club Spelaion
4. Nikolay Ivanov, Russia, a member of the caving club "Sokolniki-RUDN"
   
5. Jesús Martínez Sánchez-Dehesa, Spain, a caver
   

After adding the votes of the jury and the Internet voting the winners are:

1^st place (the photo gathered 48 points out of 120 possible):


The author of the photo: Sergio Laburu, Spain.  

2^nd place(47 points):


The author of the photo:  Kiril Bagriy, Russia. (since 2009 every year he has been taking various prizes in this contest)

3^rd place (43 points):

The author of the photo:  Sergio Laburu, Spain.  

This photo by Gabrielė Jasytė has taken the highest place among Lithuanians (11th place and 29 points):

PRIZES:

The third place winner will get a special speleo.lt brand T-shirt and a prize established by the caving club Aenigma - an ascender ASCENSION by Petzl.

The second place winner will get a special speleo.lt brand T-shirt and a prize established by the caving club Aenigma - a descender STOP by Petzl.

The first place winner will get a special speleo.lt brand T-shirt and a prize established by the caving club Aenigma  - a descender STOP by Petzl.

The sponsor and the organizer of the contest: