The Nature Photographs of the Year 2025 exhibition

The Nature Photographs of the Year 2025 exhibition will be on display at Maretarium from 1.11.2025 to 7.12.2025 and after a maintenance break from 26.12.2025 to 1.2.2026.

The aim of the Nature Photo of the Year competition is to highlight Finnish nature and the best photographs of Finnish nature of the year – in all its beauty and diversity. The Nature Photo of the Year is a visually impressive photograph that demonstrates the skill of photography and insightful vision. The Nature Photo of the Year competition is organised by the Finnish Nature Photographers Association (SLV).

A total of 12,033 photos from a total of 735 photographers were uploaded to the Nature Photo of the Year 2025 competition. The jury scored all the semi-finalist photos, and 589 photos from 207 photographers made it to the finalist photos to compete for the prize places. The jury selected the series winners, the 2nd and 3rd prizes and the honorary mentioners, and finally the Nature Photo of the Year from among all the series winners.

Ossi Saarinen’s unique lynx photo, “Tassut-Paws”, was chosen as the Nature Photo of the Year. “Tassut- Paws” clearly stood out from the rest of the high-quality photos due to its exceptional subject matter and fine execution. He was happy to return to it time and time again. The unique composition brings tension to the image,” the jury analysed the merits of the Nature Photograph of the Year. According to the jury of the competition, the image of the lynx’s paws violates the definition of traditional nature photography: it arouses interest and is worthy of viewing. “It takes a huge amount of work and, in the end, also luck to be able to capture such an image,” the jury concludes. Ossi Saarinen says that he has always photographed lynxes on their own terms and has never lured them to be photographed in any way.

The Nature Photograph of the Year, the series winners of the competition and other prize-winning photographs will form the Nature Photographs of the Year 2025 exhibition, which will tour around Finland for the next year. In addition to Maretarium, the first exhibition venues are the Finnish Nature Centre Haltia, Espoo (28.10.2025–8.2.2026) and Joroinen Library (1.11.–31.12.2025).
The Nature Photos of the Year 2025 exhibition is open during Maretarium’s opening hours and is included in the price of the Maretarium ticket, welcome!