All of you nature-loving Pandas are in for a treat. The Oceanographic Magazine has just announced the finalists of the Ocean Photography Awards and they look utterly magnificent. We can’t wait to show them to you, so scroll down to submerge yourself in the photographic glory of under- and above-water ecosystems. Remember to upvote your fave photos!
Now that we’ve seen the finalists, we can’t wait to hear who the winners of the competition are. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long: the Ocean Photography Awards winners will be announced on November 19 during a virtual ceremony worthy of Poseidon himself. Which photos do you think are the best of the best, dear Readers? (We’ve got our favorites but they’re a secret!) Let us know in the comment section!
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#1 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Two sharks surf a wave at Red Bluff, Quobba Station, in remote Western Australia. “The huge bait ball the sharks were feeding on had moved very close to the shoreline,” says photographer Sean Scott, who was on an expedition spanning the full WA coast. “I got the long lens out and took a test shot of the waves, and the very next wave the sharks were in it. I didn’t see this happen again throughout the next two days that I was there.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#2 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Paddle boarders float above a reef at sunset. “This image is one of a series of images aimed at demonstrating the innate bond humans have with the ocean, whether we are physically in it or just floating on the surface,” says photographer Grant Thomas. “In creating this picture, timing was everything; I had to shoot exactly at low tide to be close enough to the reef, while simultaneously capturing the sun as it hit the horizon.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#3 Nominee: Community Choice Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
“The Ocean Photography Awards are a celebration of our beautiful blue planet, as well as a platform to highlight the many plights it is facing,” the Oceanographic Magazine writes on its website.
The judging panel is made up of some of the world’s leading ocean photographers, so you can expect them to go all-in when it comes to picking out the best. Among them are expedition leaders and award-winners who have played an integral part in the conservation of species and raising public awareness about the issues that affect oceans and their denizens.
The judges’ work was far from easy. They had to choose the 100 finalists from more than 3k gorgeous entries. And their work’s only going to get harder as the ceremony ticks closer and closer.
#4 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Swimmer and environmental activist Lewis Pugh swimming off Antarctica. “We were deep into the Antarctic Peninsula for Lewis’s long distance swim,” says Olle Nordell, expedition photographer for the Lewis Pugh Foundation. “After scouting the bay for a good spot, I positioned myself in a zodiac. My window was small. As Lewis passed me, I framed him with the blue fringe of the glacier.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#5 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
A freediver explores a cave in Tonga. Despite having visited this site more than 100 times, photographer Karim Iliya had never see the light quite like it was on this particular day: “It looked like he [the subject] was looking into another world. It made me think about exploration on this planet, and how you can even go somewhere you’ve already been and see it in a new way.”
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Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#6 Nominee: Community Choice Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
There are 6 award categories plus the overall winner who will share the total prize pool of over a whopping half a million pounds. Some of the categories include the Ocean Adventure Photographer of the Year, the Community Choice Award, and the Ocean Conservation Photographer of the Year.
The competition aims to make the categories as broad and as inclusive as possible so that the “bravest and boldest photographers” don’t shy away from sharing their amazing photographs with the world. The photos also don’t necessarily have to be underwater. The shots can be from up topside. On the coast. Or from out into the sea. So there’s a lot of flexibility and the sky’s the limit (or in this case, the limit’s probably the Mariana Trench).
#7 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#8 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#9 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#10 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#11 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#12 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A hermit crab crawls atop a pile of plastic in a shell made from manmade waste. Photographed on the small island of Thanburudhoo in the Maldives, photographer Matt Sharp hopes his image communicates the direct impact plastic pollution is having on the natural world: “We were so shocked at the plastic waste littering the island. And then I saw this hermit crab crawling through the knee-deep plastic. It demonstrates the scale of the problem.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#13 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
A freediving instructor waits for their student to return from a dive below Cenote Angelita’s microbial cloud – a cloud that separates the light-filled freshwater above and the dark saline water below. “The microbial cloud is so thick that it appears to be a floor,” says photographer Jason Gulley, “and visibility inside it is almost zero. Visibility improves a little as you re-emerge into the pitch black saline water below.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#14 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Marlin and sea lions work a bait ball. “Each year in autumn, mackerel and sardines migrate south along the coast of the Californian Peninsula in Mexico,” says photographer Hannes Klostermann. “They are followed by an armada of predators, the most magnificent of which is the striped marlin. California sea lions, however, often compete with them for feeding opportunities.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#15 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
A cave diver enters Little River Spring in Mexico during a flood. “During most floods there is a brief period, typically a few days, when the water level in the river and aquifer are nearly equal and the normally roaring flow of water in the cave slows to a trickle,” says photographer Jason Gulley. “As spring flow diminishes, rolling clouds of orange river water begin creeping slowly into the cave before the spring completely reverses flow and floodwaters pour into the aquifer.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#16 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#17 Nominee: Community Choice Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#18 Nominee: Community Choice Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#19 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#20 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
A settling wunderpuss photographed at night during a blackwater dive in Anilao, Philippines. “Ninety percent of reef life starts out in this pelagic zone,” says photographer Henley Spiers. “During the day it stays relatively deep, and safe, only coming up to the surface at night to feed. I like to think the wunderpuss was chasing the shrimp that you also see in the bottom of the frame.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#21 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#22 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#23 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#24 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
Survivor. A blue shark clearly displays two hooks protruding from its mouth, two lucky escapes. Photographed off the coast of Rhode Island, photographer Ron Watkins says, “I’d dived with blue sharks off the coast of Southern California in similar conditions, but none ever had hooks like this shark”.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#25 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A starving polar bear looks out to sea, waiting for the ice to return. “I was scouting the shoreline when I saw the polar bear on a distant cliff,” says photographer Martin Berg. “The summer had been unusually warm, and the pack ice was further north. Many polar bears, including this one, were stranded ashore.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#26 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A polar bear surveys the icy waters north of Svalbard. “In previous work I have shown, from above, how a polar bear can use sea ice to live,” says photographer Florian Ledoux. “This image shows how a polar bear can use an iceberg to hunt. There were several seals in the area, and the bear was actively looking at the water, waiting to make its move.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#27 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A mangrove sapling stands tall as its ecosystem is pulled down around it. It was buried the next day. “The irony of this shot,” says photographer Matt Potenski, “is that I was taking a journalist to this area to see some pristine mangroves and how juvenile lemon sharks use the area as a refuge.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#28 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Waves crash on the shore at the aptly named Diamond Beach, Iceland, creating an image full of texture and vibrant hues. “The challenge,” says photographer Eric Wittkopf, “was running towards the shore break, using a long exposure of one-second, and then getting back to safety before the swell hit me.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#29 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Striped marlins gather in large numbers to feed. “In autumn, striped marlins can often be seen in large numbers in the area around Magdalena Bay, Mexico, where they feed on sardine and mackerel,” says photographer Hannes Klostermann. “I swam with this particular bait ball for more than two hours, with marlins and sea lions hunting right in front of me.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#30 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
A surfer at the remote Shipstern Bluff in Tasmania. “Gigantic swells have battered the towering cliffs at Shipstern for millennia,” says photographer Lance Morgan. “The fractured rock walls have slowly succumbed to the wind and waves, and piece by piece, created one of the most dangerous waves in the world. This part of the world is raw, rugged and cold, and help is a long way away.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#31 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Orcas surf rough water in Norway. “This moment took place above the Arctic Circle,” says photographer Todd Thimios, “A combination of impossible circumstances and years in the Arctic allowed for this very brief moment to come together – in borderline dangerous weather and fading light.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#32 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
A silky shark in Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen marine reserve. “I was trying to capture the crazy action of diving with silky sharks in this area,” says photographer Ron Watkins. “I set my shutter speed to 1/10th of a second and aperture to F/16 and spun the camera as the shark quickly approached to imply motion in the photograph.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#33 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Two technical divers descend into the Blue Abyss, Mexico. This site is accessed by an hour-long underwater scooter ride and a 20-minute swim through a shallow cave system. “You pop through a hole and suddenly the floor drops out to around 70m,” says photographer SJ Bennett. The two divers pictured are at depths of approximately 15m and 30m deep.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#34 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Crabeater seals rest on slabs of sea ice in Antarctic waters at dawn. “The night before this image was taken we were making slow progress through the sea ice and decided to stop,” says photographer Florian Ledoux. “We saw the seals feeding in an open area at the edge of the broken ice. I knew I would have the opportunity to get an image of the seals resting after they had eaten.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#35 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#36 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#37 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#38 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#39 Nominee: Young Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#40 Nominee: Young Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#41 Nominee: Community Choice Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#42 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#43 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#44 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#45 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#46 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#47 Nominee: Collective Portfolio Award
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#48 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A plastic bottle lies amongst the nests of the world’s largest colony of imperial cormorants, 100km south of Puerto Madryn, Argentina. “I was in this part of the world for research reasons,” says photographer Andrea Benvenuti. “I dreamt about this shot for days, but only had a few minutes to take it. The image was taken during a drone flight to create 3D models of the colony, to study its morphology.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#49 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A diver’s regulator holder cuts into the flesh of an oceanic whitetip, damaging its gills. Photographed in the Red Sea, Egypt, the image is a “visual representation of what we are doing to the ocean”, says photographer Joe Daniels. This shark was caught several weeks after this image was taken and the plastic was removed.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#50 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
Walruses huddle on a small patch of land, northeast of Svalbard. With the continued loss of stable sea ice due to climate change, walrus populations are at risk. The species feeds in shallow water, where sea ice plays a critical role in sustaining a healthy food web. The species is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#51 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
Fisherman haul in a purse seine net full of tuna in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. “We were between recreational dives and saw the fisherman hauling in the day’s catch,” says photographer Shane Gross. “I asked permission from our boat captain to get in the water. He asked the fisherman and we got the ok.” Gross eventually had to exit the water as the visibility disappeared due to the volume of blood and fish oil in the water.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#52 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A ghost net completely covers Kimud Shoal, Cebu, Philippines. “We visited this area in the hope of seeing hammerhead sharks,” says photographer Henley Spiers. “That hope was quickly dashed as we came across a scene that was simply horrific. We swam for 60 minutes without coming to the end of the ghost net.” Dive operators from Malapascua removed the net shortly after this photograph was taken.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#53 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
Anemone fish seemingly gaze up at the horrors of a ghost fishing net that has covered their entire reef. “In this image, you see the inhabitants of the reef looking at this human destruction which would quite quickly stifle and destroy their entre existence,” says photographer Henley Spiers. A fleet of dive operators removed the net shortly after this image was taken.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#54 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
A pair of small pantropical spotted dolphins ride the pressure wave created by a pygmy blue whale, a subspecies of the largest animal to have ever lived on our planet. “This image gives a powerful perspective of all creatures great and small,” says photographer Scott Wilson, “and illustrates the shared experience and social bonds between them.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#55 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
Three spinetail devil rays engage in sexual courtship in Honda Bay. The species is typically shy and elusive, making this capture particularly special. “It is an image I could never have dreamed of capturing at such close quarters, because this behaviour has been so rarely observed or photographed,” says photographer Duncan Murrell.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#56 Nominee: Adventure Photographer Of The Year
A remora shifts position on a humpback whale. Photographer Craig Parry was hoping to capture a close-up portrait of the whale’s eye when a suckerfish decided to move, providing him with a rare opportunity for a dynamic little-and-large behavioural shot. He has been visiting Vava’u, Tonga, for six years, spending more than 400 hours in the water in search of the perfect eye contact shot.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#57 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
A researcher operates a 360-degree camera and sound recording system as waves and fish move around him, photographed off Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The equipment was being tested for a cetacean communications research programme that hopes to decode the language of sonar and clicks.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#58 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
An aggregation of mobula rays in clear waters off Baja California Sur, Mexico. “Mobula rays are incredibly sensitive to movement and sound,” says photographer Nadia Aly, “so I took this photo while freediving. We found this aggregation at a discreet location in mid-morning and stayed with it for four hours. The sun was shining and the ocean was gifting!”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#59 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
A diver poses beneath the ice of Lake Baikal, the coldest lake in the world. Photographer Alfred Minnaar was in Siberia, Russia to photograph members of a recreational dive club who hadn’t missed a Saturday dive for 20 years. The average temperature of the lake was 1 degrees Celsius, with topside temperatures ranging from -5 degrees Celsius to -20 degrees Celsius.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#60 Nominee: Exploration Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#61 Nominee: Young Photographer Of The Year
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#62 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A shark is tangled in the reeled gillnet of an illegal fishing boat caught operating within Liberia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Photographer Melissa Romao boarded the boat as part of a Sea Shepherd team working with the Liberian government and coastguard. She was tasked with capturing photographic evidence of the ship’s illegal activity.
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
#63 Nominee: Conservation Photographer Of The Year
A beached sperm whale on the ‘Razende Bol’ sandbank, southwest of Texel Island, Netherlands, a common beaching spot for numerous whale species in the area. “I try to visit and photograph every stranded whale in the Netherlands,” says photographer Jeroen Hoekendijk. “This location is very inaccessible. I had only visited it once before, when a humpback whale got stranded on the same sandbank only six days before.”
Image credits: Ocean Photography Awards
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