Travel nominee

The Ginza district in Tokyo is known for its shopping—and for the expansive intersection known as Ginza Crossing. On weekends and holidays the crossing is closed to cars, earning it the status of “pedestrian paradise” (hokosha tengoku). The intersection is lined with tall buildings of different architectural styles, some adorned with large billboards. Whether the street is closed to cars or open to traffic, the rush and flow of movement is an impressive sight. For this photo, a long exposure was used to capture the sense of movement of the people and cars passing through.

Nathan Myhrvold is photographer, chef, scientist, and author. As the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, Myhrvold embraces the power of technology to push photographic limits. He and his team build custom cameras, robotics, and software to capture the world in new ways.

Myhrvold’s photography has been featured in publications including Smithsonian Magazine, Digital Photo Pro, Popular Photography, Galerie, and Bloomberg Pursuits. He is the founder of Modernist Cuisine, author of The Photography of Modernist Cuisine, and coauthor of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Modernist Cuisine at Home, Modernist Bread, and Modernist Pizza.

He pioneered food photography techniques to take the avant garde photographs in his award-winning cookbooks, which garnered worldwide recognition and led to the opening of Modernist Cuisine Gallery, the first gallery in the world devoted to food photography.

When not photographing food, Myhrvold travels the globe to visually document nature and wildlife. His recent innovations in snowflake photography have resulted in the highest resolution snowflake camera in the world. An avid researcher and lover of space, Myhrvold did postdoctoral cosmology work with Stephen Hawking and is currently developing new astrophotography techniques.