Being a photography enthusiastic who is not just enthralled by terrestrials but also underwater life, these snaps forced me to reconsider the impact humans have on the aquatic environment that consists of 71% of the earth’s surface.
1. Finalist, Conservation (Hope) Photographer Of The Year - Ellen Cuylaerts, Canada
The story of seal pups that are abandoned by their mothers after two weeks of nursing, until they moult, lose most of their reserves and learn to swim and hunt by themselves.
2. Finalist, Wildlife Photographer of The Year - Nadia De Lange, Svalbard, Norway.
Two polar bear cubs cosying up to their mother for security and warmth.
3. 1st Place, Young Photographer of The Year - Ryuta Ogawa, Japan.
The hatchling born on the islands that migrate more than 1000km north to their feeding habitat are seen in the shallows where they just surfaced for a breath of air.
4. Finalist, Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean Reiko Takahashi, Japan.
Alongside a busy resort in Kagoshima, a narrow waterway is home to a bloom jellyfish during the short summer period.
5. 3rd Place, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - Dmitry Kokh, Russia.
Polar bears make a 'home' of an abandoned station in the Russian high Artic on Kolyuchin Island.
6. Finalist, Wildlife Photographer of The Year - Andreas Schmid, Norway
An orca mother and her calf.
7. 2nd Place, Conservation (Hope) Photographer of The Year - Andreas Schmid, Maldives.
School of bannerfishes and pink whiprays.
8. Finalist, Fine Art Photographer of The Year - Brooke Pyke, Western Australia.
The whale shark and its perfect reflection.
9. Finalist, Fine Art Photographer of The Year - Gergo Rugli, Australia.
A seagull flying past a large wave while the light of the rising sun breaks.
10. 1st Place, Wildlife Photographer of The Year - Rafael Fernandez Caballero, Strait of Gibraltar, Spain.
A pod of pilot whales poses for a family portrait.
11. 2nd Place, The Ocean Photographer of The Year – Katherine Lu, Philippines.
A blanket octopus displays its beautiful colours and textures.
12. 1st Place, The Ocean Photographer of The Year - Ben Thouard, French Polynesia.
A surfer gets wiped out and worked by the turbulence of one of the heaviest waves in the world.
13. 2nd Place, Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean - Simon Lorenz, Sri Lanka.
A large, healthy and strong Olive Ridley sea turtle was found entangled and struggling.
14. 3rd Place, Conservation (Hope) Photographer of The Year - Renee Capozzola, Hawaii.
Three green sea turtles gather under the sun in Maui, Hawaii.
15. Finalist, Wildlife Photographer of The Year - Sean Scott, Cape Arid National Park, Western Australia.
Whales right off a beach in Western Australia.
16. 3rd Place, The Ocean Photographer of The Year - Brook Peterson, The United States.
A cormorant and baitfish forming the shape of a human face.
17. Finalist, Wildlife Photographer of The Year - Magnus Lundgren, Philippines.
A juvenile scalloped ribbonfish.
18. 3rd Place, Adventure Photographer of The Year - Martin Broen, Mexico.
An abandoned sinkhole-like cenote, where the organic matter has fallen in the water, decomposed and generated a hydrogen sulphide cloud around it.
19. Finalist, Fine Art Photographer of The Year - Vanessa Mignon, Australia.
Port Jackson sharks congregating in Jervis Bay during winter and spring in order to breed.
20. Finalist, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - Florian Ledoux, Svalbard, Norway.
Aerial view of a large male polar bear roaming Arctic's rapidly thinning and melting ice.
21. Finalist, Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean - Brook Peterson, Egypt.
Breath-taking corals.
22. Finalist, Conservation (Hope) Photographer of The Year - Renee Capozzola, Philippines.
A turtle from Apo Island, in the Philippines is home to a community-organised marine sanctuary, that takes a rest on the reef off Apo Island.
23. Finalist, Wildlife Photographer of The Year – Rafa el Fernandez Caballero, Bermeo, Spain.
Mako shark that are the fastest animal in the ocean. at sunset.
24. Finalist, Fine Art Photographer of The Year - Gabriel Barathieu, Mayotte.
The squid.
25. Finalist, Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean - Joshua Munoz, French Polynesia.
Humpback whale with its curious calf and a diver.
26. Finalist, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - André Musgrove, Bahamas.
An impactful picture that displays a woman lying on the seabed, surrounded by fragments of a dead coral reef.
27. Finalist, Adventure Photographer of The Year - Fabrice Guerin, Mexico.
In the heart of silence with nothing but the diver’s own air bubbles.
28. 1st Place, Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean - Steve Woods, Dominica.
A female sperm whale that kept falling asleep, waking up and then investigating the photographers.
29. Finalist, Adventure Photographer of The Year - Khaichuin Sim, Malaysia.
A freediver dives into a school of jackfish!
30. Finalist, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - Ishino Shota, Japan.
A turtle passing by the reef that was bleached due to high water temperatures and damaged the entire coral reef system.
31. 1st Place, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - Simon Lorenz, Sri Lanka.
32. 1st Place, Adventure Photographer of The Year - Tom St George, Mexico.
Depicting cave diving photography.
33. Finalist, Adventure Photographer of The Year - Christophe Mason-Parker, Seychelles.
Snorkelling over the vast seagrass beds that surround Desroches Island in Seychelles.
34. 2nd Place, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - Rafael Fernandez Caballero, Mexico.
A dead sperm whale whose tail showed signs of entanglement is beached and bloody.
35. Finalist, Wildlife Photographer of The Year - Simone Caprodossi, Baja California, Mexico.
A brown pelican makes the most of fishing boat scraps.
36. Finalist, Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean - Tom Vierus, French Polynesia.
Shark scientists attaching a temperature logger to the dorsal fin of a new-born blacktip reef shark in the shallow waters just off Moorea, French Polynesia.
37. Finalist, Human Connection Award: People & Planet Ocean - Thien Nguyen, Vietnam.
The protected mangrove forest of Ru Cha, in the Tam Giang lagoon, Thua Thien-Hue Province, Vietnam.
38. 3rd Place, Young Photographer of The Year - Julian Jacobs, United States.
A juvenile brown pelican and its turbulent home.
39. Finalist, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - Simone Caprodossi, Dubai.
Sharks lined up at a fish market
40. Finalist, Conservation (Impact) Photographer of The Year - Pasquale Vassallo, Italy.
A sea turtle carcass where the animal was lying in a large amount of rubbish, abandoned in the sea by humans.
Every year photographers from across the world present spine-chilling photographs that forces us to reassess our actions that contribute to the detrimental effects on our wonderful planet. So, these photographs become the testaments of anthropological impacts and need to be recorded for people of this world to see, understand, and take efforts in improving our surroundings!
Don’t you all agree?
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