Blancpain has introduced the winners of this yr’s version of Ocean Photographer of the Yr, the award that the watch model presents in collaboration with Oceanographic Journal. A macro photographer based mostly in Indonesia, Yury Ivanov received over the judging panel for his picture shot within the waters of Bali depicting a pair of ladybug amphipods feeding atop coral.
Not solely did the picture reveal its photographer’s experience – the crustaceans, which scavenge algae and seaweed, and regularly dwell amongst corals and sponges, are a problem to doc as a result of their 3mm size and their skittish actions – however it additionally impressed with the simplicity of its message: that the ocean is a spot of surprise, color and lifetime of all sizes.
The profitable picture was amongst greater than 15,000 photographs submitted from all over the world, with material spanning coastal and underwater environments, the marvel and fragility of oceans, and people’ reference to the ocean: diving penguins, stingrays drifting above clouds of sand, minute particulars of the fur coat of a Weddell seal, whale searching within the Faroe Islands, conservationists and marine mammal rescuers making an attempt to avoid wasting a beached whale.
As for the Blancpain Feminine Fifty Fathoms Award, which Blancpain created in 2021 to honour dauntless, pioneering girls in ocean images, that went to Chinese language marine biologist, science communicator, and blackwater photographer Jialing Cai this yr.
Among the many most difficult modes of underwater macro images, blackwater images takes place within the open ocean usually deeper than 200m (the place the epipelagic or daylight zone ends), and entails monitoring the vertical migration of plankton and different organisms, many smaller than a fingernail, that drift or dart as they journey upwards to feed at evening.
The winner of the Blancpain Feminine Fifty Fathoms Award is nominated by friends and judged by a jury panel comprising the diver and ocean photographer Laurent Ballesta; a delegation from Blancpain led by the watch model’s president and CEO Marc A. Hayek; and editorial workers at Oceanographic Journal. Ballesta partnered with Blancpain on tasks such because the Gombessa I in 2013 to review and doc the critically endangered West Indian Ocean coelacanth, in addition to contributed to the event of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Gombessa Tech)
This story was first seen as a part of the WOW #81 Autumn 2025 Problem
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