Untouched Whale Graveyard Captured in Eerie Photo: 'You're All Alone'

A haunting photo of an underwater whale graveyard has netted Swedish photographer, Alex Dawson, first prize in Scuba Diving's 2022 Underwater Photo Contest Wide Angle category.

"When I capture images I want to create 'I wish I was there' feelings. That's my mantra, " Dawson told Newsweek.

Under three feet of pack ice in the bay of Tasiilaq, Greenland, Dawson and his companion Anna Von Boetticher (seen in the image) swam among 20 whale carcasses to capture the winning shot. The site, known locally as flenseplassen, which translates roughly to "skinning grounds," is where local Inuit hunters collect their carcasses and strip them down to the bare bones. When the tide is high, they pull what remains back into the water.

"Usually to see whale bones like this you would need a submarine," said Dawson. But in Greenland they lie just 15 to 20 feet below the surface and are virtually untouched.

To capture the image, he swam under the ice for over an hour, switching between breathing regulators as his breath froze in their valves. "Cold doesn't give me any fear," he said, after completing the 28F dive.

The only entry point was through a small human-sized hole in the ice. "Going down into the darkness and you're all alone," he said. "You think who's down here?

"Then you come down and you see these whale bones. They're so huge."

Minke whales, as seen here, can grow up to 33 feet in length and weigh about 10 tons.

They are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act although they are currently classed as being of least concern by the IUCN. According to Dawson, the Inuits collect only 10 whales per year out of a population of 100,000.

This was Dawson's second trip to Greenland, following a previous expedition in 2019. "What's so interesting with Greenland and the pack ice is that every time you dive it will always look different because the ice moves. It's basically a new dive every time."

The main difference on this trip, he said, was the climate: "For the first five days of the trip the weather was so warm the ice and snow started melting." In these conditions, the top of the ice starts to melt, leaving a 15 inch layer of freezing water above the pack ice beneath the fresh snow. "We had to walk in this...it took three hours to walk home from our dive.

"Whether it's climate change or random weather cycling I don't know...I guess we'll see over the next five years."

The contest's other winners include Boz Johnson, Salvatore Ianniello, Miguel Ramirez and Yury Ivanov. You can see all of their images here.

The grand prize, seen below, was awarded to Boz Johnson for his image of two flying fish taken in the Philippines.

You can find Alex on Instagram @alex_dawson_photography.