DPG Masters 2025: The Year's Best Underwater Photography Revealed

The DPG Masters Underwater Imaging Competition, the premier showcase for underwater photography, has announced the winners of its 2025 contest. Over 2,000 entries were submitted worldwide into nine categories: Unrestricted, Traditional, Macro, Wide Angle, Over-Under, Conservation, Portfolio, Compact, and Cold Water. There is a separate category for Short Film. Each category awards Gold, Silver, and Bronze, along with numerous honorable mentions. The overall winner of the contest is awarded the DPG Grand Master title. Category prizes include top-tier photo gear and dive trips. The six expert judges all built their own careers around underwater photography and exploration: Nicolas Remy, Jennifer Hayes, Álvaro Herrero, Aaron Wong, and Kate Jonker. They crowned Yuka Takahashi of Japan the overall winner for her image of synchronized humpback whales. Mirrored movement Takahashi took the shot while snorkeling off the island of Mo’orea in French Polynesia. It shows two humpback whales that are often seen together in the area, swimming in near-perfect harmony. They are mirroring each other’s positions and movements, revealing their deep bond. Across the rest of the contest, Sunbong Jung won the Macro category with a close-up of a small brightly coloured fish called a bluestriped fangblenny at work, spitting sand from its burrow. In the Traditional category, Chris Gug earned Gold for his portrait of a small crab sitting on a tube anemone like a throne. Karyll Gonzalez won the Unrestricted category with a composite image. A snake eel is shown poking out of the black sand as a cleaner shrimp scuttles across its eye. Other category standouts included Anton Sorokin’s split image of the surface and underwater worlds in a Sierra Nevada stream. The winner of the Over-Under category a small orange Sierra newt perches on the rocks below the waterline. James Ferrara’s Conservation category winner shows him and his wife detangling an olive ridley turtle from ghost fishing gear. Meanwhile, Francesco Visintin’s Cold Water winner shows a rare blue crayfish reflected on the surface of the water. Usually, crayfish are hazel or olive in color, but this crustacean had a genetic mutation that gave it a bright hue. Manuel Wuthrich’s Compact category shows a diver gliding through the Cenote Dos Pisos in Mexico. The winning Portfolio went to Tom Shlesinger, who wove together images of a mass coral spawning on a vast reef in the Red Sea. Fabien Michenet took the prize for Short Film with “Pelagic: Ordinary Moments Of Ocean Life.”