Melbourne photographer James Smart has won National Geographic’s 2015 Photo Contest with a shot of a tornado in Colorado, United States.

Mr Smart spent 15 days chasing storms with his brother and some meteorologist friends before taking the winning photo, titled DIRT, on the last day, according to a press release announcing the competition results.

“The tornado was slowly getting bigger as it picked up the dust and soil from the ground on the farmland,” Smart said.”It wasn’t moving very fast, so we kept getting closer as it tracked next to the home as you can see in the image.

“Driving down a Colorado dirt road, we were lucky enough to be on the west of the tornado, so it was front-lit.

“This really helped to get great detail out of the image and the perfect light for the sky and foreground.

Source: Melbourne man wins National Geographic’s 2015 Photo…