The winners of the 12th annual photo competition for United Nations World Oceans Day are announced (8 June) today as part of the UN WOD celebrations taking place in Nice, with the judging panel selecting four first-place winners from among thousands of entries from amateur and professional photographers.
This year’s competition featured categories from previous years – Big and Small Underwater Faces, Underwater Seascapes and Above Water Seascapes – and a new addition, Wonder: Sustaining What Sustains Us, which is also the theme of the 2025 UN WOD.
The category winners are Andrey Nosik (Russia), Dani Escayola (Spain), Leander Nardin (Austria) and Rachel Moore (USA). Moore’s photo, which topped the Wonder category and is seen above, was taken in Mo’orea, French Polynesia last year and features the eye of a humpback whale named Sweet Girl.
“Four days after I captured this intimate moment, she was struck and killed by a fast-moving ship,” says Moore. “Her death serves as a heartbreaking reminder of the 20,000 whales lost to ship strikes every year.
“We are using her story to advocate for stronger protections, petitioning for stricter speed laws around Tahiti and Mo’orea during whale season. I hope Sweet Girl’s legacy will spark real change to protect these incredible animals and prevent further senseless loss.”
The competition judges included underwater photographers Ipah Uid Lynn (Malaysia), William Tan (Singapore) and Marcello Di Francesco (Italy) and French wildlife photographer Vanessa Mignon. Since its inception in 2014, the competition has been curated by Belgian underwater and wildlife photographer Ellen Cuylaerts.
Wonder: Sustaining What Sustains Us
Runner-up to Moore in the Wonder category was Spanish photographer Luis Arpa Toribio’s shot of a juvenile pinnate batfish in Indonesia’s Lembeh Strait. It was taken with a slow shutter-speed, a snooted light and deliberate camera panning to create a sense of motion and drama.
Juvenile pinnate batfish have striking black bodies outlined in vibrant orange, though they lose this coloration within months as they mature. “Capturing this image took patience and persistence over two dives, as these active young fish constantly dart for cover in crevices, making the shot particularly challenging,” says Toribio.
Third in the category was a photograph shot in Cuba’s Jardines de la Reina shark sanctuary. Steven Lopez from the USA depicted a Caribbean reef shark weaving through a group of silky sharks near the surface.
Using a slow shutter and strobes as the shark pivoted sharply, “the motion blurred into a wave-like arc across its head, lit by the golden hues of sunset”.
Big And Small Faces
Big And Small Faces category winner Andrey Nosik spotted a Japanese warbonnet in the Sea of Japan, about 80km from Vladivostok. “I found the ornate fish at a depth of about 30m under the stern of a shipwreck,” he says. “This species does not appear to be afraid of divers – on the contrary, it seems to enjoy the attention – and it even tried to sit on the dome-port of my camera.
Giacomo Marchione from Italy came second in this section. “On one of my many blackwater dives in Anilao, in the Philippines, my guide and I spotted something moving erratically at a depth of around 20m, about 10 to 15cm in size. We quickly realised that it was a rare blanket octopus.
“As we approached it opened up its beautiful blanket, revealing its multicoloured mantle. I managed to take a few shots before it went on its way.” The species is said to exhibit some of the most extreme sexual size-dimorphism in nature, with females weighing up to 40,000 times more than males!
Lars von Ritter Zahony from Germany came third: “Trips to the Antarctic Peninsula always yield amazing encounters with leopard seals,” he says. “Boldly approaching me and baring his teeth, this individual was keen to point out that this part of Antarctica was his territory. This picture was shot at dusk, resulting in the rather moody atmosphere.”
Underwater Seascapes
In the Underwater Seascapes category, winner Dani Escayola recorded a visit to a jellyfish lake while on a liveaboard trip in southern Raja Ampat, Indonesia: “Being surrounded by millions of jellyfish, which have evolved to lose their stinging ability due to the absence of predators, was one of the most breathtaking experiences I’ve ever had.”
In second place was Gerald Rambert from Mauritius, who captured a school of rays resting at a cleaning station, attracted by the strong currents there. “Some rays grew accustomed to divers, allowing close encounters like this,” he says.
“Sadly, after the severe bleaching that the reefs here suffered last year such gatherings have become rare, and I fear I may not witness this again at the same spot.”
Third-placed Pedro Carillo from Spain says that La Rapadura on the north coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands was discovered only in 1996 but is “one of the most astonishing underwater landscapes in the world, consistently ranking among the planet’s best dive-sites.
“These towering columns of basalt are the result of volcanic processes that occurred between 500,000 and a million years ago,” says Carillo, who placed model Yolanda Garcia in the setting.
“Located in a region where marine life has been impacted by once common illegal fishing practices, this stunning natural monument has both geological and ecological value, and scientists and underwater photographers are advocating for its protection.”
The winner of the Above Water Seascapes category, Leander Nardin, photographed from an aircraft a serene lake cradled by arid dunes and fed by a gentle stream on a remote stretch of coast near Shark Bay in Western Australia.
“This image reveals the powerful contrasts and hidden beauty where land and ocean meet, reminding us that the ocean is the source of all life and that everything in nature is deeply connected,” says Nardin.
The move to Nice
In the past UN WOD has been hosted at UN Headquarters in New York but this year’s event was moved to France to happen just ahead of the UN Ocean Conference, which takes place in Nice from 9-13 June.
The winning photographs will be presented live at the conference during a panel event on 11 June at the Agora in La Baleine. They will also be displayed in gallery exhibitions at NEO VogelArtLab in Nice and at the Explorer’s Club (New York) throughout the week.
The competition was co-ordinated by the UN Division for Ocean Affairs & the Law of the Sea, DivePhotoGuide (DPG), Oceanic Global and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.
Free and open to the public, every year it calls on photographers from around the world to communicate the beauty of the ocean and the importance of the respective United Nations World Oceans Day theme each year. All entrants have to sign a charter of 14 commitments regarding ethics in photography.
The top-placed entries in each category can be found along with winners from past years in the competition’s virtual gallery.
Also on Divernet: AWAKEN NEW DEPTHS: UN WOD PHOTO WINNERS, PLANET OCEAN: TIDES ARE CHANGING WINNERS, WINNING IMAGES FOR WORLD OCEANS DAY 2022
