PHOTO COMPETITION

In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly decided that, as from 2009, June 8th would be designated by the United Nations as "World Oceans Day." We recognize that our oceans are essential to securing food and survival of all life on planet Earth. They power our climate and they are a critical part of the biosphere.

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

© Aunk Horwang (Thailand). Revitalization – Winner (2022)

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

The photo competition has six thematic categories open for submissions:

1. ^NEWNo Time to Waste

   • Both human and naturally inflicted stressors on the ocean are driving the urgent need for stakeholder action. From out of control algal blooms to red tides and discarded fishing gear, images of damage inflicted on the ocean or how ocean stressors are being mitigated/solved. Submissions for this category require a set of three images

2. ^NEWPutting the Ocean First

   • Exploration, discoveries, and initiatives prioritizing the health of the ocean for now and for the future, including innovation and sustainable solutions

3. ^NEWThe Wonderful World of Tides

   • Images that explore the wonderful worlds of tides, and how nature adapts to changing environments, evident in tides and their daily (as well as sometimes multi-daily) rise and fall. Tides are a thin line between land and ocean that provide images topside or underwater, macro or wide angle

4. ^NEWOcean Is Life

   • From seagrass creating oxygen to sustainable fisheries providing food. This category captures the known, the unknown, and the overlooked. Any image depicting the connection of the ocean to sustaining all life on Earth. Oceans as a lifeline

5. ^NEWBig and Small Underwater Faces

   • Portraits of marine life underwater that feature faces big and/or small to help personalize the world beneath the waves

6. Underwater Seascapes

   • Awe-inspiring underwater seascapes of the ocean’s splendors, from life in the ocean to ecosystems and exchanges we don’t typically see, anything that inspires beauty, promise, or potential. A minimum of 50% should be taken underwater, also allowing half-above water and half-below water shots

Winning images will be recognized at the United Nations on June 8th during the United Nations' event marking World Oceans Day 2023. 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.

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

All entries must be submitted by April 23rd, 2023 at 12 midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST).

© Cao Nguyen Vu (Vietnam). Above Water Seascapes — Winner (2022)

• 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 Thursday, June 8th, 2023 in New York, during a hybrid UN World Oceans Day event, hosted by Oceanic Global as strategic partner for the day, and published on www.unworldoceansday.org shortly afterwards.

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

• Conservation rules will be strictly observed. Flora and fauna should never be stressed or endangered for the sake of a photo. Entries suspected of involving 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)
• Entrants will be obliged to agree to the following charter:

• Images that have won or placed in photo contests with winning entries announced before March 1st, 2023 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). (When a concern is raised, it will be considered by the judging panel, rectified and communicated if deemed necessary. Any bashing on social media will result in disqualification. We expect respect for and kindness towards fellow entrants)
  • 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 eligible

• 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. Winning images can be used by the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs of the United Nations and their partners to promote awareness, preservation and conservation. Strict guidelines requiring photo credit and specific one-time press release usage are issued along with the press release.

• 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.

© Nicholas Hahn (Argentina). Underwater Seascapes — Winner (2022)

• 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 4,900KB (4.9MB). Images will be viewed on a large monitor and should be in the AdobeRGB 1998 or sRGB color space.

• Please do not include any watermark or borders on your images. These elements will detract from the image’s impact. It’s not that we don't want you to protect your images; it’s just hard to appreciate an image with a watermark over it. (We will keep the display of winning images consistent, and when your image is displayed, it will be clearly labeled as your image.)

• The same image can only be entered 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.

Ipah Uid Lynn is an award-winning professional photographer born and bred in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her creative photography work has been recognized in numerous prestigious international competitions, and her images have been published in print and online dive publications all over the world.

Ipah is a regular speaker at international dive shows. Her love and passion for the underwater world inspires her to educate people about the challenges we face in protecting our oceans and the importance of conserving marine ecosystems for future generations.

Instagram: @ipah_uid_lynn

Rajan Desai became interested in photography at the age of 15 when his uncle gave him a point-and-shoot camera. He became serious about the pursuit when he read the book Photography for the Joy of It by Freeman Patterson and completed the Mass Audubon Birder’s Certificate Program to learn about birds, their habitats, migration patterns, and more.

Rajan is keen to experience the hidden wonders in nature all over the world and is passionate about capturing images that tell a story about the natural world around us.

Instagram: @rajan.desai.photos

Rathika Ramasamy is one of India’s foremost wildlife photographers. Her work has been featured in several exhibitions and numerous national and international publications. She is the founder of the RR Foundation for Wildlife Conservation (RRFWC), a non-profit that organizes photography workshops to help students understand the value of biodiversity and sustainability.

Rathika has served on the jury panel of many national and international photography contests, including the National Photography Awards, instituted by the Government of India. For her, wildlife photography is not only a passion, but also a powerful medium to connect people with nature and help motivate the conservation of the natural world.

Instagram: @rathikaramasamy

Antoine Janssens is a Swiss-born content creator, now living on the road. Antoine’s career has been fueled by a lifelong passion for travel and film creation.

Growing up, he had a desire to see the world, which drove him to explore vast landscapes, interact with thousands of animal species, meet different people, and learn from global cultures. In doing so, Antoine developed a passion for storytelling that drove him to create films and pursue photography to share all his passions with the world.

Instagram: @antoinejans

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.

• 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.