When you think of media coverage of ocean issues, what images spring to mind? A stock photo of a pristine beach, perhaps? Or a turtle with a plastic bag?
Last year, Communications INC partnered with Climate Visuals to address the ongoing problem of ocean imagery. A growing body of research highlighted a reliance on generic or stock images in ocean reporting; a lack of ‘authentic’ ocean imagery available; a lack of ocean imagery from the global south; and resource limitations as key challenges faced by media and NGOs.
We commissioned focus groups in Chile, Egypt and Portugal to explore what makes impactful ocean-climate imagery, interviewed the NGOs that make up the OneOcean Flotilla and did a desk review of existing literature on environmental imagery. We combined these findings with Climate Visuals’ own extensive research catalogue to develop the photography brief.
After an open call for photography attracted 1800+ submissions from over one hundred countries, an independent judging panel selected 93 images for the image library. This evidence-based collection of impactful and diverse imagery of ocean, coastal and climate stories is accessible and free to use by the media, journalists, non-profit sector, campaigners and educators in articles and communications.
You can see a short deck describing the project here.
If you want to use any of the images from the selection, you can do so here:
- Register at the Climate Visuals library for instant access, downloads and updates.
- Review the Ocean Visuals project background, values, ethics, briefing and evidence base.
- Browse, download and amplify the Ocean Visuals collection.
We can also check out the recommendations from the brief when you select your own images to use.