The Ocean Photographer of the Year has a simple mission: to shine a light on the beauty of the ocean and the threats it faces.
This year the photographs included stunning wildlife encounters such as airborne penguins, a lizardfish that’s bitten off more than it can chew and a playful polar bear; spectacular seascapes, including humpback whales feeding next to cathedral-like icebergs, a herd of goats on the edge of a coastal desert and narwhals scything through silty water; beautiful interpretations of the human-ocean connection, from surfers queuing for a rainbow wave, divers discovering ancient Mayan skeletons in pitch-black flooded caves, and kayakers floating amongst the ice in the Arctic wilderness.
Jialing Cai won the thew title of Ocean Photographer of the Year with her stunning image of a paper nautilus floating on a piece of ocean debris (above), photographed on a blackwater dive following a volcanic eruption in the Philippines.
Andrei Savin was named runner-up with his astonishing image of a crab sat in the middle of a sea anemone.
Third place was awarded to Alvaro Herrero Lopez-Beltran for his distressing but thought-provoking image of an entangled whale.
All this year’s imagery will be showcased at a 5-month-long exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, Australia. The exhibition will open to the public on November 17th.
The competition is produced by Oceanographic Magazine, this year in partnership with Blancpain, Arksen and Tourism Western Australia.