Travel: Parting shots

Selecting the third and final tranche of photographs from The Independent/Wanderlust/Nikon Travel Photograph of the Year competition has been almost as agonising as being gored during an Andalucian bull run. Forty photographs were highly commended by the judges, but only a few can appear here. We have chosen three images in which the photographer has been working close to the limit.

Colin Woods' shot of the west face of the Aiguille de Plan in the French Alps (below right) shows the rewards of testing the limits of endurance. The painful instant (left) that Jim Sherwood captured at the town of Vejer de la Frontera one Easter Sunday was achieved by pushing for the best vantage point as well as technical perfection. Paul Franklin's wide- eyed picture of a young mountain gorilla in Burundi, meanwhile, tested the limits of mutual respect between subject and photographer.

Our competition has proved such a success that it will be run again this year. Look out for details in The Independent and Wanderlust magazine in the autumn; for a subscription to Wanderlust, call 01753 620426.