Matty Smith aka Matthew Smith wins UPY 2026 with Rockpool Rookies

Matty Smith, credited by some outlets as Matthew Smith, wins Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026 with Rockpool Rookies, a picture of a pair of southern elephant seal pups in a shallow rockpool on Sealion Island, Falklands. The image, shot from an under-over viewpoint, was singled out by the judges for its balance of backlit fur and golden evening sky.

The competition drew more than 7,900 entries from photographers across 28 countries, and the UPY contest—running annually since 1965—named Smith its overall winner and Portrait category champion. The judges were unanimous in their admiration for the quality of the photograph, and the organisers have placed the full winners’ gallery on the UPY website and promoted it via Instagram.

Smith placed the pups in ecological context in his notes: “Once several weeks old and weaned from their mother’s milk, elephant seal pups are abandoned by their parents on shore, left to navigate life alone.” He described the behaviour that produced the frame: “On Sealion Island in the Falklands, I watched dozens of them clamber over one another in shallow rockpools, awkwardly learning to swim, and quite engaging to my presence.” He also called the decisive lighting a travel highlight: “On my very first evening, the sky ignited with colour and I captured a handful of frames before the light vanished,” calling it the “defining moment” of his trip.

Technical captions for Rockpool Rookies list the camera system and exposure details used to make that defining moment: a Nikon Z9 with a Nikkor Z 14-30mm F4 S lens in an Aquatica Digital housing, lit with two Ikelite DS230 strobes, shot at f/16, 1/60, ISO 200. Judges praised Smith’s inventive approach to perspective: Alex Mustard, chair of the judging panel, said, “Smith used a special dome that he built himself to capture the revealing under-over perspective, perfectly balancing his lighting on the pups’ fur with the setting sun.”

Mustard framed the photograph within a longer conservation arc, saying the image shows “the story it tells about nature’s resilience” and noting historical pressure on elephant seals: “Elephant seals were hunted right to the brink of extinction. Their oil rich blubber was used for everything from fuel for lighting to margarine.” The judges’ response to other entries was equally enthusiastic; on another winning image Alex Mustard said, “The moment. We’ve never seen an image like this before. Kazushige Horiguchi not only shows the egg-tending by the anemonefish, but amazingly the moment the babies burst free, with the adult looking on.”

UPY’s category winners and highlights ranged widely: Tom Shlesinger won Coral Reefs with a long-exposure coral spawning sequence from the Red Sea, Kazushige Horiguchi took Behaviour with Clownfish Hatchout, Niclas Andersson won Wrecks for The Guns of the Nagato, Cecile Gabillon Barats won Wide Angle with a juvenile sperm whale off Dominica, Jack Ho won the new Smartphone category with The Roar from Lembeh Strait, and Manuel Wüthrich was runner-up in Compact for a Cenotes shot in Dos Pisos, Mexico. Other striking images in the gallery include Natalie Yarrow’s hinge-beak shrimp tableau, a controversial whale-hunt observation by Khaichuin Sim, and dramatic encounters by photographers such as Sam Blount.

Rockpool Rookies now sits in UPY’s 2026 archive alongside winners that underscore technical innovation, fieldcraft and conservation stories; the full gallery is available on the UPY website and via the competition’s Instagram feed for those studying composition, lighting and the growing use of compact and smartphone tools in underwater work.