In Pictures: Ocean Photographer of the Year 2025 Finalists
These two humpback whales were captured by photographer Yuka Takahashi, finalist in the Young Ocean Photographer of the Year category for those age 25 and under. Taken in French Polynesia, the whales almost appear to be dancing they are so synchronised. Category winners, along with the overall Ocean Photographer of the Year 2025, will be announced in September.
At first glance this photo by Alexis Chappuis looks like ants, but it is actually thousands of skeleton shrimps on a coral in Indonesia. Their insect-like appearance is because they are amphipods, which means they don't have hard shells.
Next check out these penguins shooting through the water. Photographer Romain Barats who took this in Antarctica spent three days in a sailboat by a colony of penguins. "Clumsy on land, these birds are fast and agile in the water," he said.
Photographer Arturo de Frias didn't have a tissue handy, but he did have his camera and was able to get this brilliant photo of an iguana sneezing. It was shot at the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, home to some unique animals. Marine iguanas are like "miniature dragons", Arturo says ."By sheer luck, I photographed the split-second in which it was sneezing the excess salt it had absorbed during its dive. Sneezing is not a discomfort signal, it is perfectly natural behaviour."
The Ocean Conservation Photographer of the Year award is split into two categories - Impact and Hope. In the Impact category Richard Smith's image of a blue fish against a white coral is beautiful with a sad message. The coral is white because of coral bleaching which can devastate coral reefs all over the world.A Melanesian Blue Devil damselfish, found only in Papua New Guinea, is still living on a small branching coral colony that has bleached.
In the same category, a paper nautilus, a type of octopus, clings to a plastic bottle top in the Philippines.The image by Giancarlo Mazarese shows the problem of plastic pollution which can cause problems for lots of marine life.
The images in the Hope category touch on some of the places where marine life is thriving. In Indonesia, millions of glittering anchovies raced over the photographer Jenny Stock."They passed barely a foot from me with a huge woosh – the energy was wild and exhilarating," she said.
This unusual image by László Földi, taken in the Philippines, shows a squid egg on the sea floor. The egg which is only 2-3 centimetres across, had drifted away from the squid's nest.
This jellyfish photo in the Fine Art category almost looks like it was taken in outer space. This was exactly what photographer Toni Bertran Regas wanted. "I've always been fascinated by the resemblance between jellyfish and space rockets," says Bertran Regàs. "I was looking for a photograph that conveyed that connection: a rocket leaving Earth."
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