Mollusks and Models: Winners of the Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest

Jan 19, 2023

octopus — Best in Show and winner of the Macro category — This photo, captured in Palm Beach, Florida, depicts the bittersweet final days between a mother octopus and her young before dying of old age. | Kat Zhou

A touching image of a dying mother octopus with its young has been crowned overall winner of the 2022 Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest.

Kat Zhou took the picture in Palm Beach, Florida winning a diving trip as well as prestige. This year’s competition debuted a mobile phone category, the organizers hope that this accessible category will inspire new underwater photographers.

Third place in the Underwater Conservation category — A badly scarred shark in Portugal. | Gabriella Luongo

Second place in the Underwater Art category —‘Skater.’ | Julian Nedev.

First place in the Black and White category —Shot in Cenote Dos Pisos, Riviera Maya, Yucatan, Mexico. | Martin Broen

Third place in the Portrait category — A dramatically lit seahorse | Kim Briers

First place in the Mobile Phone category —A jellyfish shot on an iPhone 7, inside a case. | Alessandro Buzzichelli

Fourth place in the Macro category — Finding Nemo makes an appearance in the Lembeh Strait, Indonesia. | Niovrizal Herdananto

Second place in the Wide Angle category — A grey reef shark parts the tide of bait fish. | Daniel Nicholson

Second place in the Coldwater category — A marbled newt in the southeast of France and its reflection. | Yannick Gouguenheim

First place in the Wide Angle category — Blacktip reef sharks and butterflyfish gather around a healthy hard coral reef in South Fakarava, French Polynesia at sunset. This is a single, in-camera image. | Renee Capozzola

Second place in the Wide Angle category — The Blue Abyss is a fascinating sinkhole within a cave, located in one of the tunnels of the biggest underwater cave system in the world, Yucatan, Mexico. | Martin Broen

First place in the Underwater Conservation category —‘A sad catch.’ | Lawrence Alex Wu

First place in the Nudibranchs categoy | Aleksei Permiakov

First place in the Portrait category — A crab and its reflection. | Kuo-Wei Kao

First place in the Underwater Art category —A model in a private pool in Miami. | Sarah Teveldal

Second place in the Macro category — A red striated frogfish in Florida. | Matthew Sullivan

Second place in the Black and White category — A whale shark in Western Australia. | Brooke Pyke

Second place in the Portrait category —A shark off the coast of Portugal. | Gabriella Luongo

Second place in the Marine Life Behavior category — A common snapping title in Florida. | Bryan Turffs

First place in the Blackwater category — A hungry paralarvae octopus ambushes a larval mantis shrimp in the Philippines. | Dennis Corpuz

First place in the Marine Life Behavior category — A wolfish in Saltstraumen, Norway. | Nicholas Remy

Second place in the Underwater Conservation category —Plastic in Honduras. | Caroline Power

Third place in the Marine Life Behavior category — No, it’s not a James Webb Space Telescope image, it’s coral spawning in Israel. | Tom Shlesinger

Third place in the Macro category — A bobtail squid in Tasmania, Australia. | Nicholas Remy

Overall there were 14 different categories with the judges evaluating thousands of entire from 96 countries.

To see the full list of winners check out the competition’s website.

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