Matthew Smith, The Smiling Assasin (LANDSCAPE & ENVIRONMENT 2025)

Along with a small team of photographers, I sailed from Argentina to the Antarctic peninsula onboard a 60ft yacht under wind power. Travelling by yacht meant we could ensure more intimate encounters with wildlife whilst also minimising our carbon footprint and impact on this environment. As we sailed into Paradise Harbour, this young leopard seal approached our small boat. Bold and curious by nature, it circled around us as if wanting to learn more about what we were doing in its domain. This gave me time to don my dry suit and quietly slip into the water with my camera. This was my first personal encounter with a leopard seal and I didn’t want to push any boundaries, so I swam slowly over to a small chunk of floating ice and waited to see what would happen next. Soon the young leopard seal approached me out of curiosity and began to display investigative behaviour. It seemed very relaxed with my presence, making several passes, so I began to shoot some frames. My aim was to shoot over/under split shots like this to tell the story of the animal’s personality and the environment above and below the water in which it lives. Krill and penguins make up for most of the leopard seals natural diet. However, pressure from retreating sea ice and warming waters around the Antarctic peninsula, pollution and overfishing means that krill and penguin numbers are both in decline. 2022 saw a record low in Antarctic sea ice and led to the catastrophic failure of Emperor penguin breeding colonies due to loss of sea ice.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.