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A photograph showing an adult male seahorse with two tiny newborn juveniles in the shallow waters of Mo’orea, French Polynesia, has won the grand prize at the Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026 awards.
French underwater photographer Julien Anton spent countless hours searching through underwater seaweed beds with local naturalists before finding the trio. He took the photograph during a rebreather dive using specialised lighting in the Pacific waters. The image first won the Wildlife category before being selected for the overall prize, competition organisers Oceanographic Magazine and watchmaker Blancpain announced on Thursday.
More than 15,000 entries from photographers around the world were submitted across categories including Wildlife, Fine Art, Conservation and Ocean Unseen.
A quiet moment after birth
Seahorses are becoming increasingly rare across French Polynesia, making sightings difficult and unpredictable. In the winning photograph, the two tiny juveniles appear to turn back towards the adult male against the dark water. Male seahorses carry eggs in a special pouch and give birth to live young.
This makes the scene look like a father releasing his young into the open ocean. Speaking about the award, Anton described the effort involved in finding the animals.
"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 Moorea whose knowledge made this image possible," Anton said in a statement published on the competition platform.
"We spent countless hours searching in difficult conditions, with no guarantee of finding a single seahorse. That is what made the moment so extraordinary – when the juveniles turned back towards the adult, it felt like something far beyond what I had dared to hope for."
Impact on the judging panel
The photograph's composition received strong praise from the competition judges when they reviewed the entries. Will Harrison, founder and director of the Ocean Photographer of the Year, described the panel's reaction when Anton's photograph appeared before them.
"When Julien Anton's image first appeared on screen, the judging panel fell silent," Harrison stated in the award announcement. "It is an image that demands reflection, pause for thought, and it certainly got that from us.
The image is full of quiet energy, even if some of that comes from us humans imprinting our own emotions on the photograph: the bow of the father's head, the juveniles turning back towards him, the generational gap and the unknown futures of the newborns. What kind of ocean are we leaving for those who come after us?"
Broad field of international winners
Along with Anton's overall prize, several other photographers won major category awards in the 2026 competition. British photographer Jenny Stock received the Female Fifty Fathoms Award, which celebrates inspiring women in ocean photography. "To be nominated by fellow ocean photographers means more to me than I can easily express – this community is everything," Stock said after receiving the award.Other category winners included:
- Ocean Unseen: Japanese photographer Mitsuna Kawai won the new category with a blackwater photograph showing a ribbonfish off the coast of Japan.
- Fine Art: Australian photographer Matty Smith won for a black-and-white image of a nurse shark surrounded by remoras swimming in formation.
- Adventure: Sydney-based photographer Gergo Rugli won with a photograph of wild dolphins riding a wave alongside surfers at Tamarama Beach in Sydney.
- Portfolio: Spanish photographer Miguel Serrano Ruiz won for a month-long documentary series showing olive ridley sea turtle conservation work in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
All winning and shortlisted photographs will go on public display at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney from November 19 as part of the competition's global tour.
