Breathtaking images from the 10th annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition
Winners in the 10th annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition have just been revealed. Organized by the Underwater Photography Guide, the competition seeks the world’s best images documenting marine life behaviour, portraits of underwater creatures, and works that advocate for the conservation of underwater world.
Despite pandemic-related travel restrictions, the competition nonetheless received entries from photographers in 81 countries. It offered a prize pool of over US$35,000 across 13 categories. The judging panel for 2021 included renowned underwater photographers Tony Wu, Mark Strickland, and Marty Snyderman.
An image by Belgian photographer Luc Rooman of two freshwater pikes fighting took out the Best of Show title. It also won the Marine Life Behavior category. The winning image was captured during a night dive near Antwerp, Belgium.
The Wide-Angle category was won by Eduardo Acevedo, who’s based in the Canary Islands. Family shows a group of pilot whales, including adult females with calves and juvenile whales, swimming southwest of the channel between the islands of Tenerife and La Gomera.
Paolo Bausani’s image, Joker, of male anthias captured in in Argentarola Rock, Italy, won the Portrait category.
Jenny Stock won the Underwater Art category with an image captured while diving in Cuba. Magical Fairy Wisps shows royal gramma, also known as fairy basslet. In post-processing, Stock used masks and filters creating an effect where the basslet bodies appear as colourful, smoky wisps of cloud.
Head to the competition website to see all the category winners and finalists.
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