Female Fifty Fathoms Award - 2025
Celebrating inspirational women in ocean photography. Here’s to the boundary-pushers and innovators; the pioneering spirits and the resolute; the forward-thinkers and the cause-committed. Here’s to femininity, without compromise.
Which female photographer most inspires you? Local or international, amateur or professional, famous or not.
Let’s raise them up. Let’s inspire the next generation of ocean women through their example. Let’s push for parity.
Jialing Cai,
Winner
Jialing Cai is an underwater photographer and marine science communicator based in Chongqing, China. Her work sits at the intersection of science, art, and exploration, with a focus on documenting the biodiversity of plankton – some of the ocean’s smallest and most overlooked inhabitants. Cai seeks to bring its hidden life into classrooms, scientific lectures, and public spaces around the world. "While charismatic megafauna dominates public imagery, plankton form the foundation of ocean ecosystems, fuelling food webs, regulating climate, and sustaining biodiversity," says Cai.
"Yet they remain all but absent from the public imagination. My mission is simple: to make the invisible ocean life visible."