This seal is very cute. So adorable, in fact, that public voters couldn’t help but award it the top prize in the People’s Choice category for this year’s Ocean Conservancy Photo Contest. Photographer Nicole Pellegrino captured this image on a bright sunny day at the shore of Long Beach in New York.
June in the U.S. is National Ocean Month. To celebrate the occasion, the Ocean Conservancy hosts a photography contest to highlight moments that “evoke a strong emotional response [and] make the viewer feel a connection to the ocean,” as Megan Bennett, the nonprofit’s outreach manager, told Smithsonian Magazine. And this year, over 1,000 “ocean lovers” answered the call, according to the winner announcement.
In this blog, we’ve picked out some of our favorites from the final shortlist, but you can see the entire gallery here.
Walrus Nursing
To start, here’s the entry that won the grand prize, adjudicated by an expert panel of judges. Photographer Richard Rothstein was traveling in Norway when he encountered a pair of female walruses sitting protectively around a small calf.
“We remained a very respectable distance and did not approach,” Rothstein said in the statement. “The walruses seemed to completely tolerate our presence as there appeared to be no alteration of their natural behavior.”
Contest judge and two-time winner of the photo contest Angela Farmer praised the photograph’s “tenderness,” describing it as a “quiet, intimate family portrait set against the fragile backdrop of the sea ice these animals depend on.”
Abbey Road ¾
In this charming photograph, three emperor penguins are seen waddling in a single line. Viewed from the side, it does indeed resemble the cover of the iconic Beatles album—except, as the title notes, the occasion was one penguin short of a quartet. French marine ecologist and photographer Mathilde Chevallay took this photo in the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen Islands. The photograph was an honorable mention awardee.
Existing Together
Also an honorable mention awardee, this photograph by Bill Ehman captured the artistic asymmetry of two humpback whales and a paddleboarder in Hawaii.
The Lone Ranger
This close-up photo of a large male giant cuttlefish won the Staff Choice category. During mating season, most male giant cuttlefish fight and bully each other to establish dominance and win over the female. But British photographer Rowan Dear captured this cuttlefish in a rare moment of solitude and peace—hence, the “lone ranger.”
“This is an absolute showstopper—the sunburst breaking through the surface turns an ordinary dive into something almost cinematic,” Farmer commented. “The cuttlefish’s intricate textures and shifting purple-to-copper tones are stunning, and the way the light rays guide your eye right down to it shows real mastery of natural underwater lighting.”
Manatee
In this striking photo the sun illuminates a Florida manatee from behind, creating a bright corona of light. This photo, taken by American photographer David Fleetham at Three Sisters Spring in Crystal River, Florida, was an honorable mention awardee.
Curiosity
Dolphins are very smart. So it is perhaps not surprising that they’d notice a four-limbed land mammal pointing a black chunky machine at them. This appears to have been the case for this photograph, taken by Laura Murchie in French Polynesia. One dolphin peaks out from behind, whereas the other one looks slightly more irritated (maybe because of the barnacles sticking out the side of its mouth). This photograph was also part of the honorable mentions.
Nature Reclaimed
In this image a small seahorse clings to an algae-coated mooring rope in Dominica—as per the title of the entry, nature appears to be reclaiming a human-made object. The photo, taken by Bingqian Gao, won an honorable mention in the competition.
The Silver Ocean Within the Ocean
My personal favorite is this scenery of a diver swimming next to a huge school of fish in Okinawa, Japan. Japanese photographer Akira Asahina was awarded an honorable mention for his entry. The textured contrast between the diver (who Asahina calls a “mermaid”) really illustrates the vastness of the ocean, as well as the myriad of creatures who call it home.
