A lobster fisher overlooking the Bay of Fundy at dawn. Two glaucous-winged gulls silhouetted by a solar eclipse in Victoria. Volunteers in Nova Scotia cleaning the bones extracted from a 24-metre-long blue whale. Each winning image in the 2023 ECOP Canada Ocean Decade Photo Competition demonstrates the dedication and creativity early career ocean professionals bring to Canada’s ocean sector and how their stories shape the future of the ocean. 

The United Nations has declared 2021-2030 the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and early career ocean professionals are at the heart of that initiative. They are the individuals working toward and promoting ocean sustainability for the ocean we want. The ECOP Canada Ocean Decade Photo Competition aimed to collect and share visual stories on the diversity of ocean careers that exist in Canada and the people engaged in this meaningful work. 

An early career ocean professional (ECOP) is a person who self-identifies as being early in their career (10 years or less of professional experience) within any field related to the ocean (not only employed/paid positions). The term “professional” is used in order to be inclusive of professionals from many different sectors of society.

Photos were entered into four categories — “Unexpected Encounters,” “Ocean Solutions,” “The Blue Future,” and “The Things We Do For the Ocean.” A grand prize winner was selected on the basis of outstanding images submitted to multiple categories.

Canadian Geographic, ECOP Canada, and SOI Foundation are pleased to award Liam Brennan of Carp, Ont. the grand prize, an opportunity to travel with Students on Ice as an expedition photographer in summer 2024.

The over 300 entries are a testament to the vast potential early career professionals bring to Canada’s blue economy. The competition partners gratefully acknowledge the support of our prize sponsors: Blue Futures Pathways, the Canadian Ocean Literacy Coalition, and Hydro Flask.

Read on to learn more about the winning images that most impressed our judges, SOI Foundation’s Craig McCallion, ECOP Canada’s Ashley Bowes, and Royal Canadian Geographical Society Fellow and frequent Canadian Geographic contributor Jenny Wong.

Grand prize

Liam Brennan

The grand prize was awarded to Liam Brennan of Carp, Ont., whose work earned top marks from the judges in multiple categories. Among the photos that nabbed him the top prize were a stirring shot of a lobster fisher preparing to toss a cage into the water at sunrise, an ethereal capture of northern gannets returning to their colony on a foggy day at Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve in Newfoundland, and a thought-provoking landscape that contrasts smokestacks with wind turbines in Saint John, N.B.