94 Breathtaking Photographs Celebrated At The 2026 Ocean Photographer Of The Year Awards

Location: North Sulawesi, Indonesia
Description: A male Banggai cardinalfish shelters newly hatched juveniles inside his mouth, continuing the parental care that follows a three-week incubation period. After hatching, the male may brood the young for another 10 days without feeding, protecting them from predators until they become more independent. This image captures two juveniles peering from their father’s mouth, revealing the specialised mouthbrooding strategy that helps this species increase the survival of its young.

Location: Anilao, Philippines
Description: A harlequin crab rests at the entrance of a tubular sponge, carefully tending her cluster of orange eggs. By positioning herself in the current, she helps aerate and protect the developing embryos while keeping them close beneath her claws. Capturing this rare moment of maternal care required several dives at the same site, waiting for the crab to emerge. A snoot light isolated her from the busy reef, revealing an intimate glimpse of life hidden within the sponge.

Location: Avalon, California, USA
Description: A close view of a giant black sea bass reveals tiny parasitic copepods clustered around its eye in a Catalina Island kelp forest. Once misidentified on other hosts, these copepods are now known to have a specific relationship with this threatened fish. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the giant black sea bass was nearly extinct in Southern California but is now recovering through protection efforts. This image highlights how even a giant predator can support a hidden community of much smaller organisms.

Location: Lady Elliot Island, Australia
Description: “Arms of Connection” captures two octopuses during courtship on a shallow coral reef at Lady Elliot Island, part of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The male extends his specialized mating arm, known as a hectocotylus, to transfer spermatophores to the female. The interaction continued for several minutes as the male approached and the female moved across the reef before eventually accepting him.

Location: Sermersooq, Greenland
Description: Sunlight pours through cracks in an iceberg in East Greenland, illuminating the seabed like a natural theatre. Created by a storm just days earlier, these openings allow light to reach an underwater world usually hidden in darkness. Despite its warm glow, the scene was photographed in extreme conditions, with water at -2.5°C and air temperatures of -15°C, pushing both divers and equipment to their limits.

Location: Shikoku, Japan
Description: A pair of two-spot cardinalfish shelter above a vibrant field of Christmas tree worms in Japan. These colorful worms are actually the feeding crowns of tiny marine worms that live embedded within coral, extending their spirals to capture plankton from the water. Extremely sensitive to movement and light, they retract instantly when disturbed. This image highlights the hidden complexity of reef ecosystems and the fragile lives often overlooked beneath the surface.

Location: Raa Atoll, Maldives
Description: A whale shark is surrounded by divers and snorkelers in the Maldives, revealing the overwhelming pressure that crowded wildlife tourism can place on marine animals. With almost 50 people visible in the frame, this image captures the reality behind some popular wildlife encounters: an animal seeking space while people compete for a closer view. It challenges us to rethink how we experience and protect the species we admire.

Location: Deception Island, Antarctica
Description: Three gentoo penguins stand beside the rusting remains of the former Hektor whaling station at Whalers Bay, Deception Island. Once a center of Antarctic whaling, the site is now being reclaimed by wildlife and the harsh polar environment. The penguins appear almost like sentinels, watching over the ruins of an industry that once exploited these waters. Today, the silence is broken not by machinery, but by the return of the wildlife that has made this place its own again.

Location: Scotland
Description: During a dusk dive in a Scottish sea loch, a torch reveals thousands of brittle stars covering the seabed. Their delicate arms form a striking pattern around a purple sea urchin. UK seas are cold, with strong tides and changing visibility, but their nutrient-rich waters support abundant marine life. Rocky reefs can be covered with kelp, anemones, sponges, and soft corals, while fish, seals, and sharks also visit.

Location: Cuba
Description: A Caribbean reef shark swims through purple sea fans and porous sea rod in Jardines de la Reina, Cuba. The marine park has been protected since 1996, with limits on fishing and visitor numbers helping its reefs and wildlife thrive. Stretching for around 90 miles, the protected archipelago is known for healthy corals and abundant marine life. Caribbean reef sharks can reach three meters in length and are important apex predators, helping maintain balance within the reef ecosystem.

Location: Browning Pass, Canada
Description: In the cold waters of Browning Pass, Canada, a giant Pacific octopus emerges from a reef covered in soft corals, sponges, and clams. Its skin changes color and pattern using specialized cells called chromatophores, which contain pigments. Tiny muscles also raise and flatten bumps called papillae, changing the skin's texture to match its surroundings. These rapid changes help the octopus camouflage itself and can also confuse predators. The result is a remarkable display of color, pattern, and texture.

Location: Tahiti, French Polynesia
Description: A powerful wave breaks off the coast of Tahiti, its lip shaped by offshore winds as sunlight turns the spray into a glowing veil. Shot from a jet ski using a long telephoto lens, a moment of ocean chaos is transformed into a carefully balanced landscape, reminiscent of the famous print The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Location: South Ari Atoll, Maldives
Description: A lone shark glides through the shallows at sunrise in the Maldives. This aerial view reveals a peaceful side of an animal often misunderstood and feared. While several sharks circled nearby, this individual followed its own path, mirroring the photographer's walk along the beach. The tide patterns beneath the shark and the human tracks along the beach highlight the subtle kinship between two worlds sharing the same coastline.

Location: Anilao, Philippines
Description: A shrimp carrying a clutch of eggs shelters within the branches of a coral. The photographer used a snoot placed behind the coral to create the fiery glow surrounding the eggs, while front lighting revealed the shrimp without disturbing its fragile habitat.

Location: Baja California, Mexico Description: In the Pacific waters of Mexico, this photograph captures the aftermath of a successful orca hunt. Nearly an hour after a pod separated a humpback whale calf from its mother, the orcas resurfaced carrying their prey between them. The event reveals the cooperative hunting strategies of orcas, where multiple individuals work together to isolate and subdue large prey. What the image doesn't show is that after the hunt, other scavengers, including silky sharks, were drawn to the remains, showing how one event can influence an entire marine food web.

Location: Goose Bay, New Zealand
Description: A New Zealand fur seal tears apart a rough skate in the waters of New Zealand, while seabirds gather for the scraps. Unable to swallow such large prey whole, the seal throws the skate repeatedly to break it into smaller pieces. Photographed from a kayak, this scene reveals the feeding strategy of a powerful predator and the chain of life that follows every meal.

Location: Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Description: A bottlenose dolphin bites a small fish beside a traditional bagan fishing platform in Indonesia. These dolphins have learned to associate the illuminated nets with an easy source of food, often taking discarded or unwanted fish provided by fishermen. Bagan vessels use lights at night to attract fish before lowering nets from floating platforms. This image captures the close relationship between a wild predator and a human fishing practice, while revealing how animal behavior can adapt to changing ocean environments.

Location: Shizuoka, Japan
Description: This photograph captures a male cardinalfish releasing the larvae he has been brooding inside his mouth. Although this species is common in Japanese waters, the image reveals a rarely noticed stage of its life cycle. The male carries and protects the developing eggs for around a week, eating little or nothing during this period. The larvae are released over several events, with the first release containing the largest number.

Location: Hawai'i, USA
Description: The photographer shot this image of a surfer, windsurfer and kitesurfer sharing the same towering wave at Peʻahi, known as Jaws, on Maui’s north shore, from a doorless helicopter. At the time there was an unusual combination of huge swell and strong wind that allowed three different forms of wave riding to happen in harmony. In the spray, a rainbow forms. It has been created by the same wind powering the riders across the wave.

Location: Teahupo’o, French Polynesia
Description: Three surfers converge on the same wave at Teahupoʻo, French Polynesia, after a paddler is thrown from his board. The tow-in surfer immediately changes course, grabbing the cameraman to avoid a collision. At Teahupoʻo, where waves can become almost vertical, decisions are made in fractions of a second. This image captures the split-second judgment and teamwork needed to stay safe in one of the world's most demanding surf breaks.