Where Fantasy Meets the Ocean: The Vision of Junya Higashi

My Platinum-winning piece in the Editorial Photography - Environmental category was captured in the waters of Notojima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. This marine area is home to a population of about 20 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. While these dolphins typically prefer warmer waters, it is globally rare for them to settle around the Noto Peninsula, where water temperatures drop significantly during the winter. 

The sea of Noto remains remarkably calm throughout the year; at times, it reflects the island's silhouette like a mirror, captivating all who visit. By combining this beautiful underwater world with a mermaid, I sought to express the delicate boundary between humanity and nature, as well as the vital importance of protecting our marine environment. 

Winning the highest rank in this international award has given me immense confidence that my message and creative style have truly reached a global audience.

I place the utmost importance on how a single image can evoke a story or emotion, and whether it carries a clear, powerful message.

It began in my childhood when I borrowed my father's digital camera to photograph my family, daily life, and various natural landscapes. Seeing the genuine joy on my family's faces when I showed them those photos was the spark that inspired me to keep holding a camera.

It is underwater mermaid photography. I am utterly captivated by the way mermaids swim so beautifully in a harsh, breathless environment, and how their elegant movements weave together a truly fantastical worldview.

I use a Canon EOS-1D X Mark III housed in an underwater casing. Its absolute reliability and autofocus performance, which ensure I never miss a fleeting moment even in harsh underwater environments, combined with its exceptional ability to beautifully capture the rich gradations of underwater blue, make it indispensable to my creative work.

I want people worldwide to discover the breathtaking beauty of the Japanese sea. At the same time, I hope it inspires them to reflect on how we, as humans, can take action to protect these beautiful oceans.

Dolphins swim incredibly fast, whereas a mermaid (a model wearing a monofin) cannot move at such high speeds. The greatest challenge was matching the model's perfect posing and breath-holding timing with the exact millisecond a dolphin flashed past the camera.

The highly transparent Japanese seas, teeming with diverse marine life, and the mermaids who dance elegantly within them. In particular, the natural environment of Noto is stunning and serves as one of the rare places in the world where you can swim with wild dolphins, making it the ultimate source of my inspiration.

Ayano Suzuki, a prominent dolphin swimmer, underwater model, and photographer, and Katsuyuki Fukuda, the photographer who captures her art. Meeting them allowed me to deeply learn the techniques for swimming with dolphins and underwater photography, which form the very foundation of my creative expression today.

In the niche world of mermaid photography, I constantly wonder and worry if my style is truly on the right track. However, if you pour your unyielding passion into it, the world will always recognise its value. Never set limits on yourself—take that first step forward.

Always truly enjoy the act of taking photos, stay true to your instincts without being swayed by the opinions of others, and release the shutter as much as you can.

It is a vital finishing process that restores the natural brilliance of light and the deep gradients of the ocean that are often lost in underwater shooting, bringing the piece to its perfect, dramatic completion.

While AI will serve as a convenient tool to expand the horizons of expression, I firmly believe that the value of the "real, fleeting experience" of actually diving into the ocean and capturing a live moment with all one's senses can never be replicated by AI.

I dream of capturing a blue whale—the largest creature on Earth—with a mermaid swimming gracefully alongside it on an overwhelmingly grand scale.