Ocean Photographer of the Year - Conservation (Impact) Ocean Photographer of the Year - Conservation (Impact)  

Winner Ocean Conservation (Impact) Photographer of the Year  

Hugo Bret  

The Ocean Conservation (Impact) Photographer of the Year is awarded to the photographer who most effectively communicates any of the many perils facing the ocean today.

French scientific diver, marine biologist and photographer, Hugo Bret has spent the last few years immersed in ocean conservation initiatives around the world. His storytelling work focuses on documenting scientists’ fieldwork, anthropogenic pressures on marine life, and the stories of those on the frontlines of climate crisis.  

 

Location: Faroe Islands

Equipment: Lumix S5, 70-200mm f2.8 lens, 2x extender

Settings: 1/160, f/5.6, ISO 320

Image size: 143.5 x 143.5cm

 

Listeners are advised that this description contains graphic depictions and facts about animal slaughter.  

 

Wall text

A long-finned pilot whale foetus lies lifeless under its mother’s corpse in the Faroe Islands. “Each year, more than 1,000 cetaceans (marine mammals) are killed during grindadráp, including juveniles and pregnant females,” says Bret. “Usually, the foetuses are ripped from their mother’s womb far from the public gaze, but this pregnant female was undetected, revealing this moving scene.”  

 

About the image

This image was taken on a cloudy day, in the morning. Bret states that his photo was taken in a high-pressure situation as whalers were seeking to hide the whale foetus from the cameras. “I only had a handful of seconds to take this photograph before a whaler swept the foetus away with a powerful jet of water, forcing me to step back. “Bret was travelling with the Sea Shephard France at the time, Sea Shepherd is a global conservation society on a mission to defend, conserve and protect the ocean.  

The Faroes, of the Kingdom of Denmark, is a remote archipelago halfway between Iceland and Norway. Its people have a long tradition of hunting small whales and dolphins, with records dating back to 1584 as historically the Faroes suffered through famines.  

The practice of driving whales into specific bays is called Grindadráp or, more commonly, the Grind. It has its origins in the Middle Ages, when sailors would drive the whales and dolphins to beaches and kill them with spears and rowing boats. Grindadráp takes place annually. Long-finned pilot whales are driven to shore, where blunt-ended metal hooks are sunk into their blowholes, they are then dragged up the beach and their spinal columns severed with knives.  

Over the last 20 years, over 20,000 small whales and dolphins have been reported to have been killed in the ‘grinds’ and other hunts. Records showed that the 2021 Grind' accounted for the largest number of dolphins ever killed (over 1,400) on one day. In response to global criticism legislation now states that hunters must receive appropriate training to participate in the kill.  

Long finned pilot whales are a large species of oceanic dolphin; they have unusually long pectoral fins. 

 

Description

On wet, hard and black ground, to the right of centre in the image, lies a miniature whale, dwarfed against the massive side of its mother. Fully formed and the vulnerable colour of blood, its eyes are open in death. A human hand is reaching down to cup it’s little back. Its lifeless snout against an outstretched palm, gives us a true sense of scale, as the tiny whale foetus is no bigger than a human hand. The human’s dark blue parker sleeve disappears out of the top left of the image.  

The dark, still, textured skin of its mother’s body cuts across the image from behind the human arm. A long, dark, pectoral fin is jutting out, at right, intersecting with the lowered arm and so close to us its outline is a touch blurry. The long, horizontal fin draws particular attention to lighter colours of the tragedy below it, a whale foetus, backed by a human hand.  

Of the image, the photographer Hugo Bret says:  I hope this image drives global attention to end the grindadráp and, at a broader scale, advocates for a reconsideration of what the human relationship with others living beings should be.  

This is the end of the audio description.