Top travel photographers Wanderlust Travel Picture of the Year winners

The picture on the front of today's Long Weekend earned its photographer, Paul Gallagher, pounds 1,000 of Canon equipment plus a commission from The Independent. Each Saturday, our travel pages carry thousands of words designed to inform and inspire the traveller, whether of the armchair or the adventurer variety. We also use a few good photographs. When we invited readers to submit their best travel images for our first travel photography competition, held in association with Wanderlust magazine and Canon, the standard was extremely high. David Swanborough, The Independent's picture editor and one of the competition judges, said: "It was extremely difficult to limit the choice of winners to just three - the standard of composition was particularly high."

The results were announced yesterday at Destinations '97 staged in Olympia, west London, where the best 25 entries are being displayed - including the second and third prizes, shown here. Congratulations to all the finalists, and commiserations to those whose work wasn't selected this time round. We intend to repeat the competition in a year's time.