Award-winning underwater photos show haunting wrecks of warships and sunken planes

• The Underwater Photographer of the Year contest highlights compelling underwater images.
• The Wrecks category features photos of wrecked warships and sunken planes.
• The winning Wrecks photo shows a ship that sank when it hit a reef in Egypt in 1985.

The Underwater Photographer of the Year competition announced the winners of its 2025 contest, highlighting the most compelling images from beneath bodies of water around the world.

Photographers from 28 countries submitted 6,750 entries. Winners were chosen by a panel of judges in 13 categories, including the Wrecks category, which reveals the haunting remains of sunken vessels around the world.

The commended, highly commended, and winning photos in the Wrecks category show sunken ships from World War I and World War II as well as submerged aircraft.

Here are the top 10 photos of wrecks from this year’s contest.