Here are the winners of our 2018 photo contest

Sebastian Barath was hiking in Whistler, B.C., with his sister and his girlfriend when they made a pit stop to eat. When one of the birds landed on his sister’s hand, Sebastian used his Canon 70D and a 35-105 mm lens to snap this photo. “I quickly had to adjust the shutter speed on my camera, but I thought to myself, This photo needs to be taken.” Lucky for him, the bird was patient enough to wait. “The way he’s looking off to the side, it’s almost as if he was posing for us,” says Sebastian. “It just goes to show that when the moment arises, you have to be ready to capture it.”

Alex Boudens was exploring Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park with friends when they spotted this fox. Alex had his Nikon D810 camera and 200-500 mm zoom lens to help him snag this close-up from across the road. “I was waiting for the right moment,” says Alex. “It started snowing too, which was a nice touch.” Most of the fox photos he took that day were out of focus, so he was surprised to end up with this one. “It’s one of my favourite animals and probably one of my favourite wildlife photos I’ve ever taken. It was a pretty special moment.”

A familiar face swam up to the dock while Craig Valaderes was eating lunch at his girlfriend’s cottage on Sunny Lake, Ont. “Gus” is a local celebrity. “I got a few videos of him last year,” says Craig, “but I wanted to get him in his natural habitat.” Using the time-lapse mode on his waterproof GoPro, Craig took a photo every half a second or so. “I was trying to get a split view of him half in the water, but I was able to get him from underneath so you can see him in all his glory,” he says. “It looks like something out of Jurassic Park.”

This was Tom Jolly’s second summer on Georgian Bay, Ont., but he has already witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime show. Upon seeing an approaching storm, Tom ran for his Canon 6D, his tripod, and a shutter release cable (used to keep the shutter open manually) and then waited for lightning to strike. “Standing beside the flagpole probably wasn’t the best idea,” says Tom, “but I was determined.” And he had to be quick: “Thirty seconds after I took it, there was a blinding rainstorm.” It may not be lightning in a bottle, but it’s pretty darn close.

“These clouds rolled in out of nowhere,” says Barbara Havrot, who shot this while visiting the Northumberland Strait near Pugwash, N.S. She quickly retreated a hundred steps back up to the cottage, “everyone was like, ‘You just dumped your stuff,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I know. I needed to get my camera!’ ” It was worth the effort. “I managed to capture the whole scene,” she says, including her daughter-in-law, Jennifer, fleeing with Alice, 4. “It was a pretty dramatic afternoon.”

A rainy day at their Emma Lake, Sask., cabin didn’t faze Julia, 11, and Daniel, 8. Dad David Leswick decided to crawl through one of the walls of the kid-built fort with his Nikon D750 and wait. “Once I saw that I could shoot my son’s face through the stool, I knew I had a decent shot, but I had to wait for him to bend forward to play his card.” When he did—click. “Instead of everyone outside in the sun, it’s a different view of life at the cabin,” says David. “Luckily, it wasn’t really a high-security fort.”

An after-dinner swim seemed like the perfect way to end the day for Angela Kent and her son, Curtis, 8, during a trip to Lake of Two Rivers, Ont.—until it started raining. “But, hey, we were already wet,” says Angela. She used her Samsung phone to get a photo to send to Curtis’ dad, who was working. “We were trying to get one of him half in and half out of the water,” she says, but it turned out better than she expected. “Those goggles are always on if he’s in the water, so even though you can’t see his face, it’s him through and through.”

Tradition dictates boating to the Duck Rock Resort for ice cream when Stephen Barry’s family is visiting friends on Whitestone Lake, Ont. That’s how he got this photo of (from left) Jackson; Emma; his daughter, Olive; Sophie; and Adrianna, snacking away on their treats. “It was Olive’s first ice cream,” says Stephen. “We couldn’t get it away from her.”