Photography is a language that requires no words – but for photographer Angel Fitor, the camera is a tool to translate the language of nature. The photographer took the top honors at the 2025 Environmental Photography Awards for an underwater image of burrowing worms flushing out their burrows, creating what looks like a miniature sand “volcano.”
The Environmental Photography Awards, hosted by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, awarded Fitor the Grand Prize in the contest for the image, along with a category award winner and two shortlisted images.
“We environmental photographers have a simple yet colossal task: to translate the language of nature,” he said. “The natural world is of course an endless source of beauty and fascination, but the mission of visual story telling is going further in order to reveal the hidden threads that weave the complex and fragile relationships that bind our own existence to the planet.”
The burrowing worms cleaning out their burrows in the photograph play a pivotal role in the Mediterranean marine ecosystem, the photographer said. The oxygen and nutrients that the worm’s burrows help create an ecosystem under the substrate, promoting biodiversity on the seafloor.
While the worms’ impact on the ecosystem is massive, predicting when the worms would blast the sand out of the burrows was a challenge. Fitor spent two months on the project, including twenty dives of five hours each.
Fitor’s image of baby loggerhead sea turtles at a recovery center in Spain also won the Change Makers: Reasons for Hope category. The image shows a baby turtle, rescued as an egg from a crowded tourist beach, going after its first-ever jellyfish.
Along with the Change Makers category, this year’s contest also awarded prizes for Polar Wonders, Into the Forest, Ocean Worlds, and Humanity vs. Nature.
The Public Vote prize was awarded to Fernndo Faciole for an image of a recovering tapir. The tapir was rescued from one of the largest fires recorded in the Pantanal biome, Faciole said.
The contest gave the Monaco Student Vote award to Bamband Wirawan for a photograph of a tiger framed by skeletal remains.
“Photography plays a critical role in highlighting the interconnectedness of individual well-being and environmental health,” said Ami Vitale, a National Geographic photographer, documentary filmmaker, and the lead for the award’s jury. “Images prompt conversation and consideration of how we can protect and value these irreplaceable environments across the planet. They cut through apathy, capture reality, evoke empathy, and ignite action. Through this visual medium, we reconnect people with nature, highlighting not only the perils but also the promise and the hope that exists all around us.”
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