Fifth Annual World Oceans Day Photo Competition

The oceans are essential to food security and the health and survival of all life. They power our climate and they are a critical part of the biosphere.

In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly decided that, as from 2009, June 8 would be designated by the United Nations as “World Oceans Day” (resolution 63/111, paragraph 171). The UN designation of World Oceans Day is an opportunity to raise global awareness of the current challenges faced by the international community in connection with the oceans—and be part of the solutions.

World Oceans Day encourages you to make a difference in your life, community, and world by taking action to protect our ocean—for present and future generations. Despite the huge challenges facing the world’s ocean, by working together we can achieve a healthy ocean that provides for the billions of humans, plants and animals which depend on it every day.

For the fifth year running, you can share the beauty and importance of the ocean through your photographs!

The Contest

Photography is a powerful medium to convey a feeling or a message. This open and free photo competition seeks to inspire the creation and dissemination of imagery capturing the beauty and importance of the ocean and humankind’s relation to it, hoping to contribute to actions to preserve it.

The photo competition has six thematic categories open for photographic submissions:

Underwater Seascapes
Underwater Life
Above Water Seascapes
Human Interaction: Making a Difference
NEWClean Our Ocean: Images relating to the ocean that show the positive or negative consequences of human interference above or below the waterline
Youth: Open category, any image of the ocean—below or above the surface (photographed by a person under 16 years of age as of 1 April 2018)

Entries must portray a positive theme and be submitted electronically in accordance with the contest guidelines and subject to the contest rules.

Barathieu WOD Photo Competition winner 2017

Enter the 2018 World Oceans Day Photo Competition!

All entries must be submitted by May 10, 2018 at 12 midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST).

2018 PHOTO COMPETITION JUDGES & CURATOR

Lia barrett judge 2018 World Oceans Day photo competition

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Lia Barrett (Judge)

Lia Barrett is a Korean-born, North Carolina-raised professional underwater photographer. After completing university at Parsons School of Design in New York in 2007, Lia has been on a continual pursuit of travel and adventure. From her deep-sea work in a homemade submarine off of Roatán, Honduras, to connecting humans to the ocean through freediving imagery, Lia has embraced the underwater world as her ultimate sanctuary.

Lia is the Photo Editor of Dive Photo Guide, the definitive source for underwater photography. She is also the co-founder and Creative Director of Prawno Apparel, an ocean-minded apparel company that draws designs directly from Lia’s photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous newspapers, magazines, and media outlets including the New York Times, BBC, CNN, Time, Outside, O magazine, ESPN, Playboy, The Times (UK), Men’s Journal and 60 Minutes. She has sat on several underwater photography judging panels, and finds great pleasure in encouraging other photographers to grow and develop their craft. She has given a TEDx talk entitled “Human Connection for Ocean Protection”.

Adriana Basques judge 2018 World Oceans Day photo competition

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Adriana Basques (Judge)

Adriana Basques is a former IBM executive turned professional underwater photographer whose creative and award-winning imagery is devoted to bringing awareness and encouraging environmental conservation. Born in Brazil, Adriana was hooked on scuba diving during her first experience back in 1996 in the Caribbean. She finally combined her love for the underwater world with photography in 2008, when she purchased her first DSLR camera.

In 2010, she took a sabbatical from IBM and moved to California, focusing her interest on photography and diving. Three years later, the corporate life had lost its appeal, and she began to focus full time on nature and wildlife photography.

Adriana’s work has been featured in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, National Geographic magazine, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other magazines, calendars and books. Adriana also leads exclusive trips to remote and exotic locations around the world.

Darren Jew judge 2018 World Oceans Day photo competition

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Darren Jew (Judge)

After photography studies at the Queensland College of Art and work in darkrooms and commercial studios, Darren Jew spent eight years as photographer for the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, where his photographic skill found harmony with his profound love of nature. The last two decades have seen Darren pursue his passion for capturing and sharing the natural world, producing sought-after nature, travel and scientific images both above and below the water; selling fine art prints; undertaking magazine commissions; and leading photo tours to the world’s great wildlife, landscape and marine destinations.

Darren is the author of three books: Australia: Reef, Rainforest, Red Heart; Far and Wild: South; and the soon-to-be-released Underwater Australia. His images regularly appear in many magazines and books, he exhibits around Australia, and his work is used by conservation organizations worldwide. You can see him at work in the Netflix documentary series “Tales by Light”. Darren’s unique vision has seen him named Canon/AIPP Australian Science, Environment and Nature Photographer of the Year in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013.

Jerome Kim judge 2018 World Oceans Day photo competition

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Jerome Kim (Judge)

Born and raised in Korea, Jerome Kim has been based in the Philippines for the last 20 years. He considers the Philippines his favorite dive spot in the whole Coral Triangle because of the great underwater photo opportunities. He has endeavored to translate his skills as a professional architect into designing the perfect shot underwater, and he has won more than 60 awards in local and international underwater competitions.

Jerome’s work has been published in more than 40 magazines and newspapers, including the South China Morning Post (HK); Washington Post, Divers Alert (US); Manila Bulletin, Inquirer (Philippines); and Chosun, Dongah (Korea). He has also been invited as a VIP speaker to several prestigious dive shows, and has served on the judging panels of various competitions, including Asia UW Photo Challenge by EZDIVE, Dragon Cup by UWPIXEL, Okinawa Master Class by Okinawa Tourism, Green Island UW Competition by Taiwan Tourism, and others. He has co-organized the Anilao UW Photo Competition with the Philippine Department of Tourism for the last three years, and he has also organized the Okinawa Master Class and Underwater Dream Tour.

David Salvatori judge 2018 World Oceans Day photo competition

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David Salvatori (Judge)

David Salvatori began shooting underwater in 2008. His main current interest is around nature photography and conservation issues, to which he devotes his travels around the world. As an amateur underwater photographer, David spends all of his free time planning and realizing photographic expeditions to raise awareness about some of the most endangered species on the planet. He also enjoys writing articles about his trips and collaborates with various prestigious international underwater magazines.

Over the past decade, David has received a number of awards in some of the most important international underwater photography and nature photography competitions. In 2015, he published his first photographic book, Reflections from the Past, documenting his personal journey around Italy’s Tirino Valley and the fascinating submerged ruins of Capo D’Acqua Lake.

Indra Swari W judge 2018 World Oceans Day photo competition

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Indra Swari W (Judge)

For Indra Swari W, the ocean holds magnificent power, yet it gives her a sense of calmness that allows her to interact with her subjects in their environment. Throughout her 15 years of underwater photography, she has tried to capture the beauty of the marine environment in the treasure of colours offered by the creatures that inhabit the blue water. In so doing, it is her hope that her pictures share not just the beauty of this world, but through reflecting the natural behaviour of these marine creatures, raise awareness about the fragility of this environment.

Indra’s passion for creatures both large and small comes through in the pictures she captures, truly bringing them and their world to life for us all to appreciate and enjoy. Indra’s passion for wildlife, both above and below the waterline, was ignited at an early age by nature documentary maker Sir David Attenborough, who she finally got to meet in person when she won the underwater category of the BBC/Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Ellen Cuylaerts curator 2018 World Oceans Day photo competition

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Ellen Cuylaerts (Curator)

Ellen Cuylaerts studied history in Belgium and received her master’s degree in modern history and education. She relocated from Belgium to the Cayman Islands in 2009, and home-schooled her two gifted teenagers. She took up scuba diving in 2011, quickly becoming a Master Scuba Diver, and decided to combine her childhood passion for photography with the wonders of the underwater world.

After diving a few months, she signed up for a workshop and decided to use the skills she had learned to spread awareness and contribute to conservation and preservation of the fragile marine environment. Her principal concerns are the degradation of the oceans through pollution, overfishing, shark finning, and the slaughter of dolphins and whales.

Ellen’s work can be seen in exhibitions around the world, and she has received numerous awards for her pictures, including coming first and second in 2014 and 2015, respectively, in two categories of the World Oceans Day Photo Competition. A member of the Ocean Artists Society since 2014, she is also a Fellow of the Explorers Club.

Winners

Winning images will be recognized at the United Nations on Wednesday, 8 June 2018, during the United Nations’ event marking World Oceans Day 2018.

Recognition and diffusion of the winning images and finalists will be widely exposed throughout the contest websites, the media and the informational materials related to subsequent competitions. Winning photos have been printed for exhibitions around the world. In 2016, one winning photo was also selected to be used as the cover of the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment.

Contest Rules

General Rules

The contest is open to entrants of all skill levels.

Photo contest staff and judges are not allowed to enter the contest.

Winners will be announced on June 8, 2018 in New York, on the occasion of the marking of 2018 World Oceans Day at the United Nations, and published on www.unworldoceansday.org shortly afterwards.

Entries may have been taken from any camera, film (as scanned slides) or digital.

Conservation rules will be strictly observed. Flora and fauna should never be stressed or endangered for the sake of a photo. Entries suspected of exhibiting the following behavior will be disqualified:
- Photographers visibly damaging the environment (e.g., gear dragging or kicking up sand, divers exhibiting poor buoyancy control)
- Animals with signs of stress (e.g., puffed puffers, inking octopus)
- Animals moved to an unnatural environment or risky location
- Marine life being touched or placed (e.g., nudibranchs, coral polyps, seahorse tails)

Images that have won or placed in photo contests with winning entries announced before 1 December 2017 may not be submitted. Any single image that was part of a portfolio, but did not place as a single image, is eligible to be entered. A winning image is defined as follows:
- Any image that has placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in a major photography contest (to be determined subjectively by judges)
- Any image that has placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in any photo of the year-type contest. Photos of the day, week, or month are fine

Photographers retain all copyrights to their images. The organizers of World Oceans Day Photo Contest retain the right to publish the contest entries in any format to congratulate or feature the winners and their respective images, and to promote future World Oceans Day events, as well as for awareness-raising purposes for the work of the United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. Winning images will be included in a press release for third party websites and publications in the context of congratulating and/or featuring the winners and winning images, and to promote future World Oceans Day events. Strict guidelines requiring photo credit and specific one-time press release usage are issued along with the press release.

Lindbloom Underwater Seascapes – Winner (2017) WOD Photo competition

Note on photo manipulation: Post processing images is allowed. This includes global adjustments to exposure, contrast, burning, dodging, cropping, sharpening, noise reduction, and tone. Minor cleaning of images is permitted, including the removal of backscatter, dust and scratches. HDR, panoramas, focus stacking or other techniques that involve using multiple images taken at the same time and place are also allowed.

Adding, removing or moving animals, people, plants or other objects is not allowed. For example, moving a fish, removing a reef element or adding a glow to a divers torch is not acceptable.

While digital manipulation is permitted, please keep in mind this not a Photoshop competition. All images should accurately represent the subject matter and nature. Images that appear to be overly processed may be disqualified at the judges’ discretion.

Photo Submission Guidelines

Entries must be saved in JPEG format and should be sized to be between 2,000 and 6,000 pixels in the longest dimension. Please limit your images to a maximum file size of 5,000KB (5MB). Images will be viewed on a large monitor and should be in the AdobeRGB 1998 or sRGB color space.

One image can be uploaded only into one category.

Note: Entrants should retain high-resolution and RAW files, if applicable, of their submissions. In the event your submission is selected as a finalist or winner, you will be asked to submit a high-resolution image for printing and display, and, if applicable, a RAW image to check if adjustments made to the image comply with the rules.

Co-organizers

If your organization would be interested in supporting the Annual World Oceans Day Photo Contest please contact us here.

Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations: Within the United Nations, the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, (“DOALOS”) serves as the secretariat of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement. It also assists the General Assembly of the United Nations in its policy-making role in relation to oceans and the law of the sea, among many other functions. DOALOS also assists the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel in his role as Focal Point for UN-Oceans. In these capacities, DOALOS coordinates United Nations activities relating to World Oceans Day, and seeks to raise awareness about the role the United Nations and international law can play in the sustainable development and use of the oceans and their living and non-living resources.

World Ocean Network is a network of 500 members including natural history museums, aquaria, and foundations, who collectively reach an audience of 600 million individuals per year in 60 States. Through its membership, it brings together the worlds of politics, science, public administration and the media, and is in a very good position to raise awareness, inform and mobilise citizens on the issue of ocean preservation.
DivePhotoGuide (DPG) is a comprehensive underwater photography and videography resource and award-winning website for photographers and videographers of all levels. DPG has a community of over 50,000 underwater photographers and videographers from around the globe. Several times each year DPG also hosts underwater photography expeditions

World Festival of Underwater Pictures is an artistic, cultural and scientific event which aims to promote better management of the sea and oceans. The World Festival of Underwater Pictures offers underwater movies, photographs, seminars, events and more.
IAEA OA-ICC: The Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre (OA-ICC) is an IAEA “Peaceful Uses Initiative” (PUI) project based at the IAEA Environment Laboratories in Monaco. The OA-ICC acts as a hub to promote and facilitate global actions on ocean acidification in three overall areas: science, capacity building and communication.

The Contest