All aboard Brunel’s SS Great Britain this Spring! Why, we hear your cry? As if exploring this historic ship isn’t exciting enough, the Ocean Photographer of the Year 2025 exhibition is also running from 1 April until 28 June. Image above credit: Romain Barats
Ocean Photographer of the Year has become one of the most prestigious and widely celebrated photography competitions in the world. Organised by London-based Oceanographic Magazine and co-presented with Swiss watchmaker Blancpain (as part of its Ocean Commitment programme), the competition has a simple mission: to shine a light on the wonder and fragility of our blue planet and celebrate the photographers who give it a platform.
Each year, tens of thousands of images pour in from the world’s leading ocean photographers – this year, more than 15,000 submissions arrived from every corner of the globe. A judging panel – including celebrated ocean photographers and the Directors at Oceanographic – select winners across a range of categories. The competition has grown into a global touring exhibition, with previous editions shown at venues including the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. SS Great Britain is proud to be the second venue in Europe to host the 2025 edition.
What can you expect?
Good news: admission to this inspiring exhibition is included in the general ticket price. Across 116 photographs, visitors will travel from the coral reefs of Indonesia to the icy shores of the Faroe Islands, from the Great Barrier Reef to Seven Mile Beach in New South Wales – all without leaving Bristol!
The image categories, which we’ll explain later, build a portrait of the ocean that is sweeping in its range: from intimate macro portraits of creatures too small to see with the naked eye, to vast drone compositions of sea and sky, to deeply human stories of the people whose lives are shaped by the water.
Where can you see the photographs?
Suspended beneath the ship’s ‘glass sea’, visitors find themselves in a setting that feels almost oceanic. It is a setting that elevates the photography rather than competing with it. Where a conventional, white-walled gallery might frame these images as art objects, the Dry Dock places them in conversation with Bristol’s heritage. To stand beneath the hull of the world’s first ocean-going iron steamship and look up at images of the ocean she once crossed (32 times!) feels genuinely resonant.
Who’s behind the photos?
The overall winner of Ocean Photographer of the Year 2025 is Indonesia-based photographer Yury Ivanov, a PADI Dive Master with more than 15,000 dives to his name. Originally drawn to Asia 14+ years ago, he has made Bali both his home and creative focus, building a reputation for his meticulous work with tiny marine life and co-authoring the identification guidebook Nudibranchs of The Coral Triangle. His winning image, captured at his local dive site, features two perfectly synchronised amphipods (often called ‘Ladybugs of the Sea’), each just 3mm long, resting delicately on coral.
Vivid in colour, strikingly symmetrical, and achieved with remarkable patience and technical precision, the photograph encapsulates one of the exhibition’s central ideas: that the ocean is a place of wonder at every scale, and that its smallest inhabitants deserve as much attention as its giants.
As Ivanov notes, the shots required “a lot of patience and precision to compose and light the shot properly,” resulting in an intimate, unforgettable glimpse of a hidden underwater world. Elsewhere, the exhibition delivers a series of equally arresting moments – from a drooling Komodo dragon patrolling the shoreline and penguins darting through the water like torpedoes, to a stingray hovering above a cloud of shifting sand and a vivid pink crab that resembles a polished jewel. In the Human Connection category, one of the most powerful images comes from Australian photographer Craig Parry, whose drone shot captures a stranded humpback whale rescue on Seven Mile Beach, New South Wales. Viewed from above, the scene is both humbling and profound: a small team of conservationists dwarfed by the immense creature they are working tirelessly to save.
This exhibition presents a range of rare and compelling perspectives from the deep sea – moments only a few have been fortunate enough to witness.
The categories take visitors on a journey from exhilarating encounters alongside extraordinary marine life to dreamlike scenes so candid they feel almost unreal. Visitors can expect to explore images from categories including Human Connection: Portraying the bond between humans and marine life; Hope: Celebrating efforts to protect and restore marine environments; Impact: Addressing the effects of human activities on marine ecosystems; Adventure: Thrilling encounters with marine life or natural phenomena; Wildlife: Highlighting the presence of various species and habitats; Young Photographers: The cream of the crop of the next generation of ocean photographers; Fine Art: Capturing the beauty of underwater landscapes and marine life; and Female Fifty Fathoms: Celebrating inspirational female ocean photographers.
The 2025 winner Jialing Cai is an underwater photographer and marine science communicator based in Chongqing, China. Her work sits at the intersection of science, art and exploration, with a focus on documenting the biodiversity of plankton – some of the ocean’s smallest and most overlooked inhabitants!
Creativity and conservation
What distinguishes Ocean Photographer of the Year from a conventional photography exhibition is the weight it places on the relationship between beauty and urgency.
The Conservation categories of Hope and Impact place images of possibility alongside images of stark reality. For the SS Great Britain Trust – a charity whose own story is one of conservation, rescue and restoration – this feels like a natural alignment.
“Their images connect people to the ocean in ways words cannot, reaching those who may never dive in it or paddle on it, but whose lives are deeply intertwined with it,” says Will Harrison, Founder and Director of Oceanographic Magazine. “In a time of planetary urgency, this year’s photographers invite the world to see, feel, and ultimately care.”
Being able to enjoy these incredible images next to Bristol’s own waterways feels poignant. The harbourside is in the SS Great Britain Trust’s DNA. The ship itself returned home in 1970, to the Bristol dock where she was built, after an extraordinary rescue mission from the Falkland Islands. The historic Dry Dock where she rests – and where the exhibition will be on display – is as central to the ship’s tale as the original iron hull you can walk beneath.
With a rebrand and a new museum experience ready to launch in 2026, this is a big moment of change for the Trust. The SS Great Britain team says: “Our decision to programme Ocean Photographer of the Year is part of our statement to the city of Bristol: We are a venue propelled by big ideas. Come and have a conversation with us about how we can appreciate our maritime heritage whilst protecting its future”.
1 April until 28 June. Save 10% by booking online in advance, exhibition is included in general admission. After hours event on 22 April (Earth Day) 5.30pm-7pm (£10) | ssgreatbritain.org
