Celebrating photography beneath the surface of oceans, lakes, rivers and even swimming pools, the Underwater Photographer of the Year contest has announced this year’s amazing winning entries.

With “Whales Bones,” an emotive photograph showing a free-diver examining the aftermath of whaling under Greenland’s ice, Swedish photographer Alex Dawson was named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024.

Prizes and commendations were awarded in 13 categories including Wide Angle, Macro, Behavior, Portrait, Black & White, Compact, and Up & Coming among others.

‘Whale Bones’ won over 6,500 underwater pictures entered from around the world. The image “was photographed in the toughest conditions,” explains Alex Mustard, chair of judging panel. “A breath-hold diver descends below the Greenland ice sheet to bear witness to the carcasses. The composition invites us to consider our impact on the great creatures of this planet.

Since the rise of humans, wild animals have declined by 85%. Today, just four percent of mammals are wildlife, the remaining 96% are humans and our livestock. Our way needs to change to find a balance with nature.”

UPY2024 results are now available to view in the Winners’ gallery, and the complete collection is available to download and keep in the free Yearbook.

Winner UPY 2024

This image was taken in the toughest conditions as a breath-holding diver descends below the Greenland ice sheet to bear witness to slaughtered whales.

In eastern Greenland, local hunters bring their catch and share it among each other. From a stable population of more than 100,000 minke whales in the North Atlantic, the hunters of Tasiilaq typically take about a dozen.

The whale is hauled up on the beach during high tide and many families gather to cut the skin, blubber and the meat at low tide. Almost the entire whale is consumed. However, the skeleton is pulled back into the sea by the next high tide and the remains can be found in shallow waters where various marine invertebrates and fish pick the bones clean.

Wide Angle

A pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins swimming wild and free in the Bahamas.

“Over the last three years I have travelled to Bimini where a resident population is known for their playfulness with freedivers,” Remuna Beca explains. “They are incredibly fast and acrobatic, making most encounters high-energy and unpredictable, which can be challenging to photograph. I wanted to create an image that captured their playful spirit and the serene beauty of seeing them in the wild.”

In 2011, the Bahamas declared its waters a “shark sanctuary.” At dusk, several dozen lemon sharks rose from the depths and surround the dive boat. “Perched on the swim-step with my body half-submerged, I set out to take split shots,” Rodolphe Guignard recalled. “On this day, the sea was rough and the sharks were lively and very curious, not hesitating to come into contact with my housing.”

The Underwater Photographer of the Year contest is based in the United Kingdom. With her image “Star Attraction,” which finds beauty in species of British wildlife that are often overlooked, photographer Jenny Stock was named British Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024.

Off the west coast of Scotland, Loch Leven is a dive site near Oban where “in the dark green depths, my torch picked out the vivid colours of a living carpet of thousands of brittle stars, each with a different pattern.,” said Stock. “I was happily snapping away, when I spotted this purple sea urchin.”

A dominant star next to this graphic invertebrate created a beautifully balanced pair, perfectly surrounded by an entanglement of the background brittlestars.

Macro Images

For the photographer, this particular seahorse made a striking contrast with the surrounding coral, the result of its especially distinguished markings around the eye, and the jaw-dropping color palette.

While seahorses aren’t rare in Sydney dive sites, the seahorse’s striking red eye and posture captured the character of both the secretive seahorse and the murky waters of Sydney.

A pop art palette of prime colors explodes as this juvenile puffer filefish comes into the photographer’s frame. The tiny white dot, the object of the filefish’s attention, fills this careful composition with purpose.

“We frequently witness the vertical migration of small creatures that travel and feed on highly attractive lights in water that is approximately 200-plus meters deep,” said Dennis Corpuz. “While I was exploring the area, I came across a pyrosome (an unusual tubular planktonic animal) that was 10 centimeters (4 inches) long. As I examined it carefully, I discovered that a tiny octopus was hiding inside it. The creature was floating in mid-water and moving randomly.

Portraits

This groundbreaking underwater portrait of a curious whale entitled ‘Grey Whale Connection’ was taken as the photographer was drifting in a small boat, holding his camera over the side in the water. The whale displayed a friendly gaze resembling a human look of curiosity and innocence.

Encounters with gray whales in Pacific saltwater lagoons are extremely special. Known for their friendly and curious nature, gray whales often approach boats, allowing observers to witness distinctive behaviors like spy-hopping. During their migration from the Bering Sea to Baja California, these lagoons serve as crucial havens and winter maternity wards.

With only around 1,300 gray whales left, responsible practices of ecotourism are key to protect these giants. These special moments highlight the beauty and intelligence of the whales, creating enduring memories for both observers and, surely, the curious whales themselves.

During fieldwork at Phi Phi Islands, Thailand, spanning several weeks, the photographer focused on documenting the behavior of these crab-eating macaques and their water forages. The macaques have adapted very well to living around the sea and venture into the water for various reasons including transportation, scavenging, cooling down and even playing.

Highly efficient swimmers, they can dive for up to half a minute and cover short distances faster than most humans. This photo offers a rare glimpse of the swimming movement of a male macaque.

More surprising than encountering a bird underwater is having the bird try to attack your camera while hunting for small fish in the kelp forest.

“Last summer at a popular Monterey dive site, the cormorants seemed to be more active and curious than usual,” On Anderson recalled. “I had numerous cormorants approach me, peck at my head and tank, follow me around and try to eat my camera. This one paused for a moment, perhaps after the seeing its self-reflection in my dome port, allowing me to capture a head-on portrait.

Countless species including these cormorants depend on healthy kelp forests to thrive. Unfortunately, local kelp forests have declined by more than 80% in size over the past decade due to warmer waters and unchecked predation by urchins.

Behavior

“I was fortunate to experience this unique spectacle in the open Pacific waters in Magdalena Bay at the end of 2023.,” said Rafael Fernandez Caballero. “Due to the warmer water caused by the climate phenomenon ‘El Niño’, more species than ever joined this hunt.”

Bait balls of sardines attracted a variety of predators, but the main stars of the show, visiting Baja in perhaps larger numbers than ever, were the Bryde’s whales. They patrolled the waters, searching for bait balls to get their bellies full of hundreds of kilograms of fish. This photo shows the very moment of attack, with the whale’s ventral pleats wide open and filtering the prey from the water using their baleens after engulfing hundreds of kilograms of sardines in one bite.

“Absolutely jaw dropping (pun intended). Perfectly posed and composed at the peak of the action with sunshine highlights,” the judges commented.

Two female Zoarchias major eelpouts in a fight.

During the breeding season, in order to get a suitable spawning nest, not only the males will fight each other, but also the females — and even males and females will sometimes fight each other.

Usually, they can only be found in very few places of southern Japan. The image epitomizes the decisive moment when a hormone-fuelled dispute, as happens with many human disputes, is settled in favor of the individual with the biggest mouth.

When a whale falls to the ocean floor, nothing goes to waste.

A young humpback whale’s carcass lay slumped on the sand and within a few days, the bones had already been stripped. This lone tiger shark remained at the scene cleaning every scrap it can scavenge.

The meat from this dead whale musst have fed countless sharks of all types, fish and sea birds. This huge transfer of energy travelled all the way from Antarctica to arrive on the Australian Ningaloo Reef. “As if this section of the reef has won the lottery,” the photographer Brooke Pyke writes. “This is one of the most moving scenes I have ever photographed. I was both emotional and yet mesmerized by the pure, raw beauty of it.”

Cardinalfish are mouthbrooders and this image shows the moment the baby fish are released. At the moment of hatching, the father swims upward and spits out his many babies in an instant.

There seem far more babies than could fit in the mouth; it’s hard to believe so many can come from one fish.

“It happens so quickly that it has taken me several years to get this image,” said Kenji Sato. “I hope that many of his babies will grow, and survive.”

Impact

A nudibranch (sea slug) on eggs, with a commensal emperor shrimp on the head, is all set against a golden explosion of light.

The coconut octopus was sitting in a small hollow in the sand. In the background rests a shell where another coconut octopus was living. After some pictures, the octopus started to touch the camera’s lens.

Up and Coming

The moment of ambush amidst a blur of evasion, this action photo captures high-speed hunting of sardines by mahi mahi fish.

With this image, Lisa Stengel of the United States was named Up & Coming Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024. Stengel used both a fast shutter speed and her hearing to catch the moment. “If you listen, there’s an enormous amount of sound in the ocean,” she explained. “The action was too fast to see, so I homed in on the sound of the attacks to capture this special moment.”

Raja Ampat, Indonesia is a destination at the top of many divers’ bucket lists for the incredible diversity and density of marine life.

“My goal on my first visit to this magical destination was to create a photograph that captured the explosion of life, color and texture,” said Raja Ampat. “This lionfish nestled up to a black crinoid feather star and framed by hundreds of tiny glass fish caught my attention and became a favourite image from the year of shooting.”

“Summer 2023 brought the usual small groups of baby barracudas to each coral pinnacle on the house reef at Marsa Shagra, but for the first time in the 11 years I have lived there, they all gradually came together as one giant bait ball in the entrance of the bay, giving divers no choice but to pass through them at the start and end of their dive,” said Marsa Shagra. “Snorkelers spent hours every day floating above them, mesmerised by their movements.

This free diver played amongst them, influencing their formation for as long as her breath would last. As autumn passed, the juveniles grew and the bait ball attracted hunters such as snappers, jacks and bigger barracudas who feasted for several months, and by winter it was if it had never existed.”

Marine Conservation

Portuguese photographer Nuno Sá, was named ‘Save Our Seas Foundation’ Marine Conservation Photographer of the Year 2024 with his photo ‘Saving Goliath’, taken in Portugal and showing beachgoers trying to save a stranded sperm whale.

The picture gives us hope that people do care and want to help the oceans, but also warns us that bigger changes are needed. “The whale had been struck by a ship and its fate was sealed,” explains Sá.

The golden beaches of Costa da Caparica, just across the river from Lisbon, were packed with sun seekers on this sunny day. And then something unusual caught their attention. A massive sperm whale seemed to be struggling to swim as it slowly moved towards the coast. Soon its giant wounded body was passing by surfers and swimmers and reaching the shallow waters of the beach. Suddenly dozens of sun seekers start running towards the whale and together they push and chant trying to help the giant back into the sea, as it slowly slaps its tail back and forth, and breathes heavily.

Several hours later, the whale takes its last breath, its body crushed by gravity as it lays on the sand.

An estimated 20,000 whales are killed every year, and many more injured, after being struck by ships — and few people even realize that it happens.

Every year, thousands of marine seabirds are caught in fishing gear from all the seas and oceans of the planet, from longlines to nets.

In the coastal lagoon of the Mar Menor in Spain, it occurs too often with several species of diving birds.

These seabirds are divers and look for fish to feed on. During their dives, they become trapped in nets that they cannot see and die a slow and agonizing death because they cannot breathe. On many occasions, these fishing gear are illegal (such as the one in this image) that killed an adult specimen of the great cormorant with the fish that surely lured it towards the net in the first place, still in its mouth.

You want to know. I want to know. We all want to know. What the inside of the now-defunct Longaberger basket building looks like, that is.

Well, now you can find out.

Mark Soergel, owner of Mark Soergel Designs, was visiting the giant basket–which is located in Newark and once served as the Longaberger headquarters–to take some photos of what is the world’s tallest basket (according to Roadside America), when he was invited inside by a security guard on duty.

“As I was about to head back to the car after peeking into the loading dock doors, a car rolled up and a guy put his window down and asked what I was doing…I told him I was just taking pictures and he offered to take me through the inside of this massive basket building,” Soergel’s post reads. He also noted, per a conversation he shared with the security guard, there are plans to create hotel from the building, although no other details about this were shared.

You can check out his photos below:

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Want to read more? Check out our print publications, (614) Magazine and Stock & Barrel. Learn where you can find free copies of our newest issues here!

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Navigating the complexities of landscape photography, particularly in the vast wilderness, takes more than just capturing images. It’s about the entire journey, from planning and visualizing to experiencing the majesty of nature firsthand. This adventure, especially in remote locations like New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park, gives you a chance to express your unique perspective and emotions through your work.

Coming to you from William Patino, this inspiring video showcases the profound connection between a photographer and the natural world. Patino emphasizes the importance of the journey leading up to the moment of capture, highlighting the anticipation, challenges, and eventual triumph when all elements align perfectly. His approach to scouting, planning, and immersing himself in the environment showcases just how much it really takes to come away with a meaningful image. For photographers, especially those drawn to the unpredictability and allure of the outdoors, Patino’s experiences underline the significance of patience, resilience, and creativity in the pursuit of worthwhile shots.

Patino’s adventure through Fiordland National Park is a testament to the rewards of venturing into the unknown. His detailed preparation, from analyzing topographical maps to physically navigating the terrain, demonstrates an essential commitment to preparation, both for photography and safety. The emphasis on early morning light and atmospheric conditions further illustrates the dynamic nature of landscape photography, where timing and perspective are everything. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Patino.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, “Photographing the World: Japan With Elia Locardi!” 

Australian police are investigating an allegation by a photographer that he was assaulted by singer Taylor Swift’s father on Tuesday.

>> Read more trending news

Ben McDonald, 51, said Scott Swift, 71, hit him in the face as he and his pop singer daughter were getting off a yacht and headed to a car.

A video broadcast by Australian media shows Taylor Swift, who is concealed beneath an umbrella, walking with her father and security guards along Neutral Bay Wharf toward a car at about 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Camera flashes go off before two voices — reported to be a photographer and a guard — accuse each other of touching umbrellas, BBC News reported. It is unclear whether the footage captures the alleged incident.

McDonald said the singer had already entered the car when her father “charged in” and attacked him.

“I’ve been doing this for 23 years and I haven’t been in a situation where someone’s hit me in the chops,” he said, adding he had not provoked the incident.

A representative for the singer had a different take on the incident.

“Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water,” the representative told The Guardian.

New South Wales Police said in a statement, “The younger man reported the incident and inquiries are now under way by officers attached to North Shore Police Area Command,” New South Wales Police said in a statement.

Swift wrapped up the Australian leg of her Eras Tour in Sydney on Monday night.

© 2024 Cox Media Group

Renowned photographer takes director’s chair for “The After”

Isa Soares sits down with director and co-writer of “The After,” an Oscar-nominated film dealing with themes of grief and empathy.

If you missed all the hubbub when it was initially announced, the Humane AI Pin is an entirely new type of device that’s designed to replace your smartphone. You wear it like a lapel pin and it works a bit like a Star Trek Next Gen communicator. You tap the front of it to interact and, from that point on, it’ll respond to your queries like a supercharged Alexa.

Sounds a bit bonkers, right? Well, it gets even more bizarre. There’s no display and if you want to use it without speaking, it’ll project a monochromatic UI onto your hands, which can be controlled via a series of finger and hand gestures.

This is the kind of weird product that would normally be shrugged off by the masses, but there’s a serious team behind it. The company was founded by husband and wife team ImranChaudhri and Bethany Bongiorn, both former Apple employees who worked on the iPhone, giving it more credibility than you might expect.

First encounter with a wild AI Pin

While I was wandering the endless halls of MWC Barcelona, I happened to stumble across some Humane staff hanging out at the Qualcomm booth, and they were all wearing the elusive AI Pin.

The first thing that struck me about the device is how small it is. It looks smaller than the DJI Mic 2, for example, and considering all the things it can do, that’s very impressive. Next came the projector, which was so much brighter than I imagined it would be. However, we were standing in a dimly lit exhibition hall, and this thing will need to compete with daylight if you’re using it outside, so I suppose it needs to be.

What didn’t surprise me, though, was how awkward it looked to use this projected UI. Yes, it’s super cool, and it draws a crowd, but practicality is not its strong suit. I get that the idea is all about moving away from screens, but the single colour preview of a photo is a prime example of its shortcomings. It almost looked like a QR code as it was projected onto the Humane employee’s hand!

But is it any good at taking pictures?

Of course, smartphones are used for much more than web access and communication. For a lot of us, it’s the main way that we capture photos and videos. The Humane AI pin can do that, too, and I was very excited to see how they looked.

I was shown some images and videos on taken with the Pin on the Humane rep’s smartphone. Obviously, this is something that a phone is better for, as the pin doesn’t have a display. Unfortunately, I can’t show the images here, as they’re the staff member’s personal family photos, but I did get a decent look at the quality.

Images come out in a square-ish aspect ratio with an extremely wide FOV, probably equivalent to around 12mm in full-frame speak. There’s no barrel distortion, and the pictures looked very detailed and high quality, as far as I could tell. The reason for this super wide angle is that the Pin is something that you wear, rather than something you point and aim like a camera. So it needs to get as much in frame as possible.

This isn’t going to result in the most inspiring compositions, but it could work for quick snaps of scenes you want to remember. According to Humane, the idea is to keep you in the moment, rather than viewing precious moments through your smartphone display, and it starts to make sense from that perspective.

I only saw a short video clip, but it was displayed in a more traditional 16:9 aspect ratio, and again, the quality looked better than I expected. Stabilisation looked decent in the short clip, too. It made me wonder if it’d work for hands-free POV shots, like when you’re riding a bike.

Even after seeing the device being used in the real world, I’m left with more questions than answers. Humane thinks this device can replace your smartphone, and I’m not so convinced. As an additional accessory, though, who knows, it could turn out to be the next big thing.

If you’re interested in giving the AI Pin a go, it will begin shipping in April, with a retail price of $699.

For more on mobile photography, check out our guide to the best camera phone.