Julien Anton of France has won the 2026 Ocean Photographer of the Year contest for his incredible black-and-white portrait of three seahorses. Against the backdrop of the inky black water, two tiny juveniles seem to pause and look back at the large male seahorse before swimming away.
Photographed in the seaweed-filled waters around Moorea in French Polynesia, the image captures a fleeting moment. It feels intimate and strangely human, as if the young are looking back at their father before taking their first tentative steps.
Speaking to Oceanographic Magazine, Anton described capturing the image. “We spent countless hours searching in difficult conditions, with no guarantee of finding a single seahorse. That is what made the moment so extraordinary: When the juveniles turned back towards the adult, it felt like something far beyond what I had dared to hope for.
“I am not a professional photographer. For me, photography is simply how I share what I see and feel.”
The photo originally took top place in the competition’s Ocean Wildlife category before going on to take the overall top prize.
Female Fifty Fathoms Award Winner. Photo: Jenny Stock/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
Contest background
Launched in 2020, the annual Ocean Photographer of the Year competition, presented by Oceanographic Magazine and Blancpain, aims to capture the beauty, diversity, and complexity of our oceans. Will Harrison, founder of the competition, explained, “These photographs don’t just capture what’s beneath the surface. They surface the stories our planet most needs us to hear.”
The Ocean Unseen: Hidden Worlds Winner. Photo: Mitsuna Kawai/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
Categories
This year, the contest received over 15,000 entries in seven main categories: Ocean Wildlife, Ocean Fine Art, Ocean Adventure, Conservation Impact, Conservation Hope, Human Connection: People & Planet Ocean, and The Ocean Unseen: Hidden Worlds. There were also awards for the Ocean Portfolio and the Female Fifty Fathoms Award.
Ocean Unseen: Hidden Worlds is a new category introduced this year that focuses on the ocean’s smallest and least-seen inhabitants. The first winner of the award is Mitsuna Kawai of Japan for her image of tiny iridescent ribbonfish taken during a blackwater dive off Japan. The fish appears almost ghostlike against the darkness and is surrounded by tiny organisms drifting through the open ocean.
Ocean Adventure Category Winner. Photo: Gergo Rugli/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
British photographer Jenny Stock won the Female Fifty Fathoms Award for her underwater image of an American crocodile weaving through mangroves in Cuba. Unlike all other categories, photographers cannot put themselves forward for this award. Instead, they have to be nominated by their peers. The award began in 2021 specifically to honor the “boundary-pushing women in ocean photography.”
Fine Art Category Winner. Photo: Matty Smith/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
Fine art
The Ocean Fine Art category takes a more artistic approach. Matty Smith of Australia won with a dramatic black-and-white image of a tawny nurse shark accompanied by remoras in the Maldives.
In the Adventure category, Gergo Rugli captured a completely different kind of ocean encounter. His photo shows an extraordinary meeting between humans and marine wildlife: dolphins surfing alongside people at Tamarama Beach in Sydney, Australia. The animals spent more than an hour riding the waves with the surfers.
Conservation Impact Winner. Photo: James Ferrara/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
Conservation
Other photographs focus on the complicated relationship between people and marine wildlife. James Ferrara won the Conservation Impact category with an image of a whale shark surrounded by divers and snorkelers in the Maldives. Though the photograph is visually spectacular, the large number of people surrounding a single animal also raises questions about the effects of wildlife tourism.
Conservation Hope Winner. Photo: Thomas Pavy/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
In contrast, the Conservation Hope category highlights the human effort to protect marine life. Thomas Pavy won the category for his photo of scientists studying a great hammerhead shark in French Polynesia with laser-calibrated video photogrammetry.
Human Connection Winner. Photo: Rui Duarte/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
The Human Connection: People & Planet Ocean category was won by Rui Duarte, whose image shows a group of volunteers trying to rescue a stranded pilot whale in Boa Vista, Cape Verde. Meanwhile, Miguel Serrano Ruiz received the Ocean Portfolio Award for a collection of photos documenting efforts to protect olive ridley sea turtles in Baja California, Mexico.
Ocean Portfolio Award Winner. Photo: Miguel Serrano Ruiz/Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026
