oceanographicmagazine.com
Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026 winners announced
French photographer Julien Anton has been named Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026 for his extraordinary portrait of a male seahorse and two tiny juveniles alongside him. In the image, the juveniles – just distinguishable against the dark expanse of the ocean – appear to pause and look back, as if weighing what lies ahead. In seahorses, it is the male who carries and births the young, a fact that gives the image its quiet charge. It is a portrait of the next generation, poised at the edge of an uncertain world, one that poses a question that hangs in the water long after the viewer has looked away: what kind of ocean are we leaving behind? Anton’s photograph was first named winner of the Ocean Wildlife category before being elevated to the overall prize. On being named Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026, Anton said: “Winning Ocean Photographer of the Year is an immense honour – one I’m proud to share with my family, and with the local residents, naturalists and fishermen of Tahiti and Mo’orea whose knowledge made this image possible. “We spent countless hours searching in difficult conditions, with no guarantee of finding a single seahorse. That...
