15 beautiful images from the finalists of Smithsonian Magazine's annual photo contest

The judges of Smithsonian's photo contest have announced the finalists for 2015. The 13th annual contest had over 460,000 submissions from photographers in 168 different countries.

The categories include the American experience, natural world, travel, sustainable travel, people, mobile, and altered images. Finalists were selected by the photo teams at Smithsonian magazine and Smithsonian.com.

You can vote here for the Readers' Choice winner. The winners will be announced at the end of March.

Below are just some of the beautiful images from the finalists of the contest.