Danish clean sweep
The Nordic Photo Contest for Seafarers 2025 received a total of 778 photos from 115 seafaring photographers. As in previous years, the jury was impressed by the high quality of the images that made it to the final round.
The 2025 competition was supposed to be decided in Roskilde on 6 February 2026, but had to be cancelled due to the severe snowstorm that hit Denmark and southern Sweden. Instead, the organizer, Irene Olsen from Danish Seahealth & Welfare, managed to gather the jury for a new judging session on 12 February.
This year’s jury consisted of photographer and filmmaker Werner Karrasch from the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, and Søren Zeuth, documentary creator and portrait photographer.
– It was both difficult and exciting. The level of photography is very high. Many of the photographs have taken a stance on their motif and have made an effort to capture the moment or find the best motif” they said together.
The selection process began with each jury member quietly reviewing all the photos on their own. Next, they looked at the images together and removed those that had no chance of winning. Even after that, most photos were still on the table. These were then divided into three groups: those with a chance to win, those that could receive an honorable mention, and those to be excluded. Several photos changed groups during the process, and the jury explained that choosing the final winners was challenging because there were so many strong entries.
When the results were presented to the Nordic organizers via video link later that afternoon, it turned out that Danish seafarers had taken four out of the five prizes, with the fifth prize going to Iceland. It is important to note that all photos are fully anonymized so the judges only evaluate the image itself. In addition to the prizes, five photos received honorable mentions, and here the spread between countries was better – only Finland was not represented.
Werner Karrasch and Søren Zeuth explained that they placed great emphasis on the subject matter: What is the photographer trying to express, and how well do composition and colours work together?
– In some photos, the post‑processing could have been better – both in colour and cropping – and we believe that when digital editing is available, it should be used. The selected photos are excellent, and you can really feel the photographer’s presence in them, which is what makes them winners, they said.
TEXT: JIMMY ERIKSSON
Winners Nordic Photo Contest for Seafarers
Honorable mentions
The Nordic Photo Competition for Seafarers is a joint initiative between the Swedish Maritime Administration, the Norwegian Maritime Authority, the Finnish Seamen’s Service, Sea Health & Welfare in Denmark, and the Icelandic seafarers’ magazine Sjómannablaðið Víkingur.
The 2026 competition has already begun and will run throughout the entire year
Swedish national competition
January 23 2026, Norrköping.
The national round also went digital this year due to concerns about spreading illness. This posed no problem for the jury members of recent years – freelance photographer Niclas Fasth and the Swedish Maritime Administration’s communications officer Björn Alverfeldt – who easily connected online to review and judge the images.
The purpose of the national competition is to select fifteen entries that will advance to the Nordic final. In addition, the jury was tasked with choosing three Swedish winners from the same set of images.
After the first review of the 79 submitted entries, the comment was: "Yes, there are quite a few beautiful images in this collection.” After several more rounds through all the photos, most had been eliminated in order to narrow the selection down to fifteen.
After one and a half hours, the final selection was made and three national entries had been crowned as winners. Two images received the jury’s honourable mention. Read the jury’s motivation in the caption for each respective image.
Swedish finalists
Last updated 2026-02-16