Amazing Photos From The Underwater Photographer Of The Year Contest Will Stun And Delight You

Up & Coming Category: Third “Migration” by Austin Ferguson, USA

“Every year in the Pacific Northwest of North America, wild Pacific Salmon make an epic migration from the ocean up the same rivers and streams that they were born in, sometimes traveling over a thousand miles inland to reproduce. Salmon are a keystone species in the Pacific Northwest as much of the surrounding flora and fauna depend on them for survival. However, Pacific Salmon are in a precipitous decline due to overfishing, dams, salmon farming and deforestation. This image is part of a series highlighting the decline of Pacific Salmon, their vital role in the ecosystem, and the need to protect them. Over the course of three months, I spent countless hours in 13°C water photographing this incredible migration. Eventually, my patience paid off when I captured this image of a male Pink Salmon fighting his way back upstream to continue his species and nurture the surrounding ecosystem.”

Wide Angle Category: “Down The Stream” By Wendy Timmermans, Netherlands

“Visiting the Mexican Cenotes was like a dream for me. This picture was taken with natural light and on one breath only, while freediving. Arriving in Mexico, our disappointment at finding ‘The Pit’ closed for freedivers instantly disappeared when we discovered the remote Cenote Nah Yah. A hypnotizing bundle of sunbeams lightened up the crystal clear water into the depths, contrasting with the darkness. In this picture fellow freediver Guillaume Bihet is descending into the deep. Together we create our images and share them as Seadrops Photography. Inside the Cenote the water was completely still and silent. But the small water movement resulting from the descent created a circular pattern on the surface, beautifully contrasting with the straightness of the beams underwater.”

Macro Category: “Black-Saddle Snake Eel” By Marchione Dott. Giacomo, Italy

“TK3 dive site, looking for some organism to photograph, when from the sandy bottom comes the muzzle of a eel Moray eel (Black-Saddle Snake Eel (Ophichthus cephalozona) and around her a shrimp scavenger (Periclimenes venustus). The shrimp rises on the muzzle of the moray eel and balances like an acrobat on it, for a unique photo and for a unique duet.”

Macro Category Winner: “Seahorse Density” By Shane Gross, Canada

“The pond I was in has the highest density of seahorses on Earth, but I’ve never seen three together like this before. I was camping on shore and had all night to shoot with the idea of backlighting a single seahorse, but finding three together was a real gift. I was super careful not to disturb them because they will swim away if they?ve had enough. I had my off-camera strobe and an underwater flashlight on a small tripod which I placed behind and below the trio. Then I waited for them to all turn in way that you could see their silhouette. The sun was setting and as it got darker the plankton really began to pile up. When the seahorses ate some of the plankton I could tell they were relaxed. We are still working on getting this special place protection so I cannot reveal the exact location.”

Underwater Photographer Of The Year. “Cycle-War” By Tobias Friedrich, Germany

“For a few years now I had had this image in mind as the motorcycles on this truck inside the Thistlegorm lie so perfectly together, but you can only barely capture it because the wall is very close and you can’t move backwards enough to capture the whole scenery. As a result I had to create a panoramic image of the same scene to capture the whole cargo deck, including some lights that give the image more depth.”

Compact Category Winner: “Dancing With The Giants” By Simone Matucci, New Zealand

“Escaping the New Zealand winter for a magical week in Tonga’s underwater dreamland dancing with whales, my wife and I spent 5 days and nights at sea, sailing the Ha’apai islands & swimming with humpbacks. Not another single boat was in sight all week. The beauty of the encounters that we had are truly transcending. These two adult humpbacks had such a connection with us in the water, literally “dancing” .. it was the most wild & incredible thing I have probably witnessed in my entire life. Humpback whales are such a magnificent species and they need our protection. The entire ocean needs our help. Now is the time more than ever, before it is too late .. before we lose it all. I hope that my photography brings out the ocean conservationist in all of us and helps to spread awareness to help save the ocean!”

British Waters Wide Angle Category: by Tony Stephenson, UK

“Living in the East Midlands in England is a long way from the sea and as a result, a lot of my diving takes place in the quarry at Stoney Cove, the UK’s National Diving Centre. I love photographing pike and on this particular dive during the Easter holidays, a ‘group’ of males were looking for a mate. Once they found one they pursued her relentlessly and were completely transfixed on gaining her attention. This allowed me to get close in front of the fish, fill the frame and aim to get lots of good eye contact. I was delighted by the results. I hope that I have demonstrated that UK inland diving can throw up some amazing sights that are a pleasure to witness and photograph.”

Compact Category: “Crop Circle”By Ipah Uid, Malaysia

“I was still a newbie when I took this photo. At that time the hype was the emperor shrimp on sea cucumber or any moving nudibranch. When my guide Jandri showed me the nudibranch it never occurred to me there would be a tiny shrimp on a nudi the size of your palm. I was more surprised when there was about 5 of them it. What caught my attention was the circle of sand stuck on the Pleurobranchidae nudibranch . It was a shape of a crop circle ! I waited about 15 minutes for the emperor shrimp to position itself on the nudi and quickly took the shot I wanted. Patience was indeed required since it is so small …”

Wide Angle Category: “Breathtaking” By Tobias Friedrich, Germany

“We found a pod of Orcas that were circling some herring caught in a net. The animals keep circling the net and we could approach them easily to take some close up shots.”

British Waters Wide Angle Category: Third “Fresh Otter At Sea” By Greg Lecoeur, France

“I was very intrigued by this mammal who adapted to marine life and had in mind to witness of this scene. So I asked to my Scottish friend Richard Shucksmith who knows this species very well to help me to capture this image. During a dive we were very lucky to find this otter who was curious about my lens.”

Compact Category: “Manta Frenzy” By Ali Shujau, Maldives

“On the day after a full moon in July 2017, we got lucky with about 80 manta rays converging on the plankton-rich Hanifaru Bay in Baa Atoll, Maldives. Personally for me, it was challenging to get a good composition with multiple mantas in the frame whilst balancing the ambient light cast from the sun through the rough-weather choppy seas at the bay, all the time fighting against the surface currents and trying not to get too overwhelmed by the mesmerising beauty portrayed by these beautiful creatures.”

British Waters Wide Angle Category: “Feeding Sturgeon In A Cloud Of Silt” By Trevor Rees, UK

“A number of sturgeon can be found at Capernwray in Lancashire. This fish was most likely released to this freshwater flooded quarry a number of years ago, possibly because of having outgrown someone’s pond. Nevertheless, as a species sturgeon are actually native to the UK and have survived unchanged for centuries. My photo shows the fish going about its business of foraging for food in the silty bottom of the quarry. They sift through the silt looking for anything that they can swallow and in doing over create clouds of silt. It was a fun winter project looking for this fish and trying to get a pleasing behaviour photo.”

Portrait Category: “One Of The Last Ones” By Robert Marc Lehmann, Germany

“This is one of two Asian small clawed otters which I followed for a couple of days in their rewilding training in the jungle of Palawan, Philippines. They were rescued as babies and people are trying to release them back into the wild after extensive training in the sea, the jungle and various freshwater areas. As these creatures are super agile and fast it was very hard to get a satisfying image. I had hundreds of bad images out of focus or just half of one otter in frame. It was horrible! The river might be in a tropical region, but the water was just 10°C and after long hours without moving I was close to hypothermic, but the final image was worth it. This species is facing extinction in the near future due to habitat loss. I hope there is still time left to save these incredible animals.”

Portrait Category: Third “Under The Wave” By Rodney Bursiel, USA

“I have been traveling with musician and professional surfer, Donavon Frankenreiter for about four years now. On a recent surf trip to Tavarua, Fiji I captured this shot of Donavon playing under the wave at Cloudbreak. When shooting surf photography I love being under the wave. There is just so much more going on there. Seeing the power of the wave from below and watching the surfers dive below it. It’s the side of the wave that you don’t get to see from the shore.”

Wrecks Category: “Perfect Wheel” By Pekka Tuuri, Finland

“The German ship Klaus Oldendorf went down in 1942 after hitting a mine. Today she is a very interesting wreck at 30 m depth to the deck. This picture was actually already planned on the deck of the dive boat. We were a team of three and all had been to the wheel before. We went through the photo plan thoroughly. First we took pictures with a top light (torch) and then with backlight. I took pictures with both flash and no flash and liked this one without flash more. It was important to balance the light correctly as I wanted to have the natural faint green glow in the background. This picture is a panorama of two images.”

Compact Category: “Night Reflection Of A Juvenile Garfish” By Jack Berthomier, New Caledonia

“Red nose juvenile garfishes are numerous to hunt for prey among Uitoe bay.New Caledonia To make the shoot good, you have to get near to the fish for the light not to dazzle him but you need enough light for the focusing.”

Wide Angle Category: “Tannic Water At Cenote Carwash” By Tom St George, Mexico

“Maybe once a year due to prolonged and heavy rainfall the water at Cenote Carwash can become very tannic; meaning the water is stained a reddish brown by the tannins from decaying leaf and other organic matter in the run-off from the jungle. As soon as we dropped down through the water it was clear that things were very different from a usual dive at Cenote Carwash. It was extremely dark due to the tannic water filtering out a lot of the light (hence the high iso). The light coming through the water was very red and a bit like diving on Mars! I knew immediately that I wanted to take the classic ‘Cenote Carwash entrance’ shot but with this very different background with the intense shades of red.”

Compact Category: “Kootenay Lake” By Stephen Holinski, Canada

“I have been visiting Kootenay Lake, and spending time on its rocky beaches, for the past 5 years. During these years, I have spent a few evenings trying to capture an over-under that showed the beauty of this wonderful mountain lake with clear mountain skies. To-date, the skies have yet to be clear on a night while I was shooting! In the summer of 2017, when this photo was taken, there were a number of forest fires burning in the region which provided the misty and beautiful pink hue to the skies.”

British Waters Macro Category: “Nudibranch Across The Kelp” By Trevor Rees, UK

“The nudibranch (Flabellina bostoniensis) was spotted making its way across a kelp frond in the shallows of Loch Fyne. The simple kelp background interspersed with small white worm casts made for a pleasing picture. The lighting effect was enhanced with a home-made bottle snoot on my flash gun to help render a dark background and leave my subject in the spotlight.
This species is quite large for a British sea slug at around 3cm long. The somewhat pastel colours and long cerata make it one of the prettier species in my opinion. Accurate focus to ensure both rhinophores were sharp, together with careful composition and the shot proved straightforward enough to execute.”

British Waters Macro Category: “In A Sea Of Squirts” By Paul Kay, UK

“Velvet swimming crabs, with their red eyes and blue pincers are a popular subject. This one caught my eye not because it was in itself photogenic, but because it was hunkered down on a rocky reef dominated by vase sea squirts (Ciona intenstinalis). Whilst these sea squirts are common enough in sea lochs, in this particular spot they were really clean and about as abundant as I can ever remember seeing them. So, for an animal which mostly tries to be relatively inconspicuous, this one had failed pretty miserably. I was very fortunate as the visibility was good enough for me to back off with the 50mm macro lens so that I could take this ‘view’ including the crab, rather than simply take its portrait.”

British Waters Macro Category: Third “Colourful Corkwing” By Kirsty Andrews, UK

“Male corkwing wrasse can be stunning and I had wanted for some time to take an image that would show off the personality and vibrant coloration of this common UK critter. However, these wrasse are busy creatures, working hard to build a nest of seaweed, and then guarding it fiercely. They move surprisingly quickly and are adept at ignoring a camera lens. I found a corkwing nest on the wall of Bovisand Harbour, a favourite shore dive of mine, and didn’t have to wait long for the proud home-maker to appear with a mouthful of weed. He laid it down carefully and bustled away for the next morsel. This happened over and over again, and the most I got was a disinterested glance as he swept past. Eventually after several attempts I captured the characterful portrait I had envisaged.”

Black & White Category: “Morning Flight” By Filippo Borghi, Italy

“During spring time from April to June on the coast of Baja California we can witness one of the most impressive migrations of the sea. Thousands of mobula ray’s migrate along this coast. I try many times to find this incredible behavior but some how this has not occurred. This year, during a morning safari on the sea we saw a different group of beautiful mobular. I jumped in the water and we followed them for a couple of hours and during this time a small group moved into a shallow area where I was able to shoot in great light.”

Black & White Category: “Hypnosis” By Wendy Timmermans, Netherlands

“I’m a freediving Vice-World Champion and can dive up to 83 meter while holding my breath. But diving deep is only one small part of my passion for the underwater world and for me, freediving the Mexican Cenotes has been a dream for many years. As freedivers, we explore the abyss on one breath only, in its purest way. It allows us to move gracefully through the water and makes time stand still for a moment. The calmness, beauty and serenity of this remote Cenote magnified the state of tranquillity inherent in our sport. The picture shows fellow freediving underwater photographer Guillaume Bihet. Together we create our images and share our work as Seadrops Photography. Freediving gives us the perfect tool to move around freely and improvise. Taken with natural light only, in Nah Yah Cenote, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.”

British Waters Wide Angle Category: “Courtship” By Spencer Burrows, UK

“The Farne Islands is home to an estimated population of 5,000 Grey Seals. I like to visit during the autumn months, the water is generally at its warmest and clearest. This is also the breeding season which usually ensures plenty of activity and interaction. During this particular dive, myself and good friend/underwater photographer (Rob Cuss) noticed a real change in behaviour, the Seals were not interested in us, but much more into each other. This particular pair were highly affectionate and displaying many signs of courtship/mating. We had done countless dives at the Farnes but this was a show of behaviour we’d not witnessed before. The speed at which they’d change meant to capture this behaviour I needed to anticipate and work at pace. I managed to record a series of images that I was pleased with and felt they managed to really ” tell a story”… a magical dive.”

If you want to download the free 160 page Yearbook click here. To see all the photographs commended in this year’s competition visit the Underwater Photographer of the Year website.

You can also view the winners from the 2019 contest here.