Striking images win Underwater Photographer 2024 awards

Swedish photographer Alex Dawson has won the 2024 Underwater Photographer of the Year award for his haunting image of a free diver observing a minke whale skeleton on the ocean’s floor.

Dawson’s photo titled “Whale Bones” was selected from over 6,500 entries submitted by photographers from across the world. Taken in Tasiilaq, Greenland, the chilling underwater scene documents what remains after local hunters are done harvesting their catch.

“The whale is pulled up on the beach during high tide and many families gather to cut the skin, blubber, and the meat off at low tide,” Dawson tells UPY. “Almost all the 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.”

Dawson mentions that of the approximately 100,000 Minke whales in the North Atlantic, Tasiilaq hunters typically take less than a dozen.

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Lisa Stengel of the United States was named Up and Coming Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 for her timely capture of a feasting mahi mahi. Aptly named “Window of Opportunity”, Stengel was able to capture the moment the tropical fish caught its next meal by listening for warning signs from the swarm of fish or “bait ball”.

“I chose not to wear a hood and noticed a distinct noise from the bait ball every time the mahi would attempt to hit a target,” Stengel says. “I honed in on the sound of mahi attacks and followed this unmistakable sound with my camera.” This clever technique allowed her to capture the special moment.

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Portuguese photographer Nuno Sá won Save Our Seas Foundation Marine Conservation Photographer of the Year 2024 with his heartbreaking image “Saving Goliath”.

The image captures the moment when sunbathers on a beach near Lisbon, Spain, attempted to push a beached sperm whale back out to sea. After trying for some time, Sá tells UPY, they were unable to move the whale.

“Several hours later, the whale took its last breath—its body crushed by gravity as it lay on the sand,” says Sá. “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.”

British Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 was awarded to photographer Jenny Stock for her striking nighttime image of a brittlestar and a purple sea urchin titled “Star Attraction”.

Exploring at dusk in the shallows of Loch Leven in Oban, Scotland, Stock spotted the vivid duo.

“I was happily snapping away when I spotted this purple sea urchin and I got really excited,” Stock tells UPY. “A dominant star next to this graphic invertebrate created a beautifully balanced pair, perfectly surrounded by an entanglement of the background brittlestars.”

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Claiming Most Promising British Underwater Photographer 2024 was photographer Sandra Stalker for her image of a raving crab.

Titled “Midnight Raver” for the technicolor lighting creating a club-like atmosphere out of the crab’s near-shore stomping grounds, this fun image was inspired by the crab’s dance-like movements.

“I find the crabs to have such bold and funny characters whilst running up to me, then away wildly flailing their legs like ravers, and I wanted to capture this character,” Stalker says. “I used a purple light on a torch for the background and then I shone the crab with white light on a strobe, tracking it as it ran across the seabed for the long exposure,” she explains.

Underwater Photographer of the Year is an annual competition, based in the UK, that celebrates photography beneath the surface of the ocean, lakes, rivers, and even swimming pools. The competition has 13 categories, testing photographers with themes such as macro, wide-angle, behavior, and wreck photography.