Blancpain Recognises Excellence at the Ocean Photographer of the Year Awards
Blancpain has announced the winners of this year’s edition of Ocean Photographer of the Year, the award that the watch brand presents in collaboration with Oceanographic Magazine. A macro photographer based in Indonesia, Yury Ivanov won over the judging panel for his photo shot in the waters of Bali depicting a pair of ladybug amphipods feeding atop coral.
Not only did the image demonstrate its photographer’s expertise – the crustaceans, which scavenge algae and seaweed, and frequently live among corals and sponges, are a challenge to document due to their 3mm length and their skittish movements – but it also impressed with the simplicity of its message: that the ocean is a place of wonder, colour and life of all sizes.
The winning photo was among more than 15,000 images submitted from around the world, with subject matter spanning coastal and underwater environments, the marvel and fragility of oceans, and humans’ connection with the sea: diving penguins, stingrays drifting above clouds of sand, minute details of the fur coat of a Weddell seal, whale hunting in the Faroe Islands, conservationists and marine mammal rescuers trying to save a beached whale.
As for the Blancpain Female Fifty Fathoms Award, which Blancpain created in 2021 to honour dauntless, pioneering women in ocean photography, that went to Chinese marine biologist, science communicator, and blackwater photographer Jialing Cai this year.
Among the most challenging modes of underwater macro photography, blackwater photography takes place in the open ocean typically deeper than 200m (where the epipelagic or sunlight zone ends), and involves tracking the vertical migration of plankton and other organisms, many smaller than a fingernail, that drift or dart as they travel upwards to feed at night.
The winner of the Blancpain Female Fifty Fathoms Award is nominated by peers and judged by a jury panel comprising the diver and ocean photographer Laurent Ballesta; a delegation from Blancpain led by the watch brand’s president and CEO Marc A. Hayek; and editorial staff at Oceanographic Magazine. Ballesta partnered with Blancpain on projects such as the Gombessa I in 2013 to study and document the critically endangered West Indian Ocean coelacanth, as well as contributed to the development of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Gombessa Tech)
This story was first seen as part of the WOW #81 Autumn 2025 Issue
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