UPY 2025

UPY  Save our Seas Foundation Marine Conservation - Winner
'1 / 200.000.000'
Robert Marc Lehmann

This tiger shark is just one of around 200 million sharks that lose their lives every year at the hands of humans.
Since I was six years old (35 years+), I have been intensively studying sharks. In all these years, hardly anything has changed and that is frustrating. Sharks protect their habitat, the sea, through their ecological function as "health police". Over a billion people depend on the sea every day and we all breathe the oxygen that is largely produced in the sea. If we continue to eradicate the animals that guard our largest and most important habitat, we are taking away our own livelihood. And that's why I've been fighting for people to see and understand sharks through my eyes. Every time I take a photo like this, it hurts, but through imagery I can inspire millions of people to understand sharks and their situation and make a difference.

Judge's comment: A stunning, story-telling image, with four men hauling this huge ocean predator onto land. The light is beautiful, the composition immersive and the timing, capturing the fisherman’s gesture, is perfect. Although an everyday occurrence and legal in most places, the man reaching out to stop the photo reveals what his conscience reckons on what they are doing. Powerful photography.

Alex Mustard