UPY 2025

UPY  Wide Angle - Winner
'Frozen Mobile Home'
GREG LECOEUR

Massive and mysterious habitats, icebergs are dynamic kingdoms that support marine life. As they swing and rotate slowly through polar currents, icebergs fertilize the oceans by carrying nutrients from land that spark blooms of phytoplankton, fundamental to the carbon cycle. During an expedition in Antarctica Peninsula with filmmaker Florian Fisher and freediver Guillaume Nery, we explored and documented the hidden face of this iceberg where crab-eater seals have taken up residence on icebergs that drift at the whim of polar currents.

Judge's comment: The balletic rhythm of these crabeater seals and the ethereal landscape of the pitted iceberg creates a composition that draws you into a corner of the world that few people have witnessed. The multiple subjects take my eyes on a journey through the frame and into the icy ocean of Antarctica.
- Alex Mustard
A deserved and unanimous winner which combines photographic beauty, composition, exquisite light and delicate colours. Perfect poses from the seals make this a celebration of natural life and a most enduring image.
- Peter Rowlands
A stand out winner from the very first time I viewed it. The positioning of the seals could not be surpassed. Each of the four compositions are superb in relation to the image frame. ‘Peak of the Action’ at it’s very best.
- Martin Edge