UPY 2025

UPY  Save our Seas Foundation Marine Conservation - Runner Up
'Boat Strike Victim'
Henley Spiers

The corpse of a sea turtle offers a window into life and death in the open ocean. The gashes across the turtle’s carapace offered clear evidence that it perished due to a boat strike, an unnatural death and a poignant reminder that these animals must share the ocean with an ever-growing human presence.
Even in death, however, the turtle became a vessel for life. Far out at sea, every bit of flotsam, whether natural or man-made, becomes a form of inverted life raft. Small fish use any structure they can find to hide from predators. Here, the decomposing corpse of the turtle has been rapidly adopted as a refuge by juvenile fish.

Judge's comment: This is a stark, on message, subject in it’s own right but the upward angle creates visually impressive reflections topped by the delicate surface reveal. An image with so much visual detail but only one message. Perfect and awful in equal measures.

Peter Rowlands