Hilo photographer and art gallery owner Bruce Omori has won an international nature photography contest for his shot of the interaction between molten lava and the ocean off the Big Island.

The photo, titled "Volcanic Vortices," received the Windland Smith Rice International Award in the power of nature category, one of 15 categories in the contest. The photo will be displayed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in June and will be published in the fall/winter edition of Nature’s Best Photography magazine.

The photo, selected from almost 20,000 submissions from 46 countries, shows steam rising in columns off the water’s surface, with a fiery glow of lava along the water’s edge.

"On an early morning shoot at the Waikupanaha ocean entry, lava from the Kilauea volcano poured into the sea. This created a huge escape of steam, and as it rose, multiple vortices began spinning off of the huge plume," Omori wrote in his description of the photo for the contest. "A vortex or two is a pretty rare sight — but when one after another kept forming, my fumbling with the lenses turned into a panicked rush to switch my telephoto to wide-angle lens to capture this awesome scene of seven vortices in a row."

Omori is co-owner of Extreme Exposure Fine Art Gallery along with photographer Tom Kuali‘i. They lead photography tours and workshops on Hawaii island and do their own "extreme" nature photography.