WINNER CHOSEN AND REVIEW BY SCUBAVERSE.COM’S UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY EDITORS NICK & CAROLINE ROBERTSON-BROWN

WINNER: Wave Maker by Ahmed Helal

PHOTOLINK: https://www.scubaverse.com/contestants/wave-maker/

When judging any underwater photography competition, the first thing we do is ask of each image: Is it in focus? The main subject has to be pin sharp. Is it exposed correctly?

We then look at lighting (photography is all about light) and composition. Backscatter, hot spots of light, messy backgrounds all might see your image lose out.

Then there are other considerations that might get you knocked out of the first round: Was the image taken underwater? After all it is an underwater photography competition! Were any animals distressed or harassed to get the image? Was any environmental damage done to get the shot?

Once we have whittled out the images that do not pass these criteria, it is time to get down to picking a winner. A shot that makes us both go wow – I wish I had taken that!

April 2016

This month saw 54 entries into the competition – a record number – and there were some lovely images. One of the toughest judging decisions is selecting the winner from both worthy macro and wide angle images.

Our favourites

Caroline

In my top 10 this month:

Paul Ansell’s juvenile lyretail shot with vibrant colours and great eye contact.

Wave Maker by Ahmed Helal. An evocative image of an Oceanic Whitetip Shark swimming under a boat wake in the Red Sea.

Black Nudibranch by Kate Jonker. Pin sharp, and you can almost feel the velvety texture.

Wall of Jacks by Simon Briggs – a nice black & white schooling shot.

Electric Blue Shark by Kate Jonker – another lovely shot. Got the blue just right.

Cute by Sean Chinn – love the head on shot of this nurse shark. There is lots going on in the background, but in this shot, that is OK.

Black & Box by Emeric Denis. Moody lighting on a lovely subject. Black and yellow are a great combination.

Jellyfish by Patryk Pinski – a lovely shot of a jelly near the surface. Great texture.

Yellow buddies by Domenico Luzzi – great subject, well taken. I like the blue eyes of the 2 fish lining up in the shot.

Under the boat by Elaine White – lovely stingray in sunlight shot. The shape of the stingray turning makes this.

My top 4 are: Paul’s little fish; Ahmed’s oceanic whitetip; Sean’s nurse shark & Kate’s nudi.

Nick

This month, there were 54 images for Caroline and I to look at and the standard just keeps getting better. I have picked out 15 of my favourites to critique, but if your image is not here, please, don’t despair – if I’d had the time, I would have done nearly everyone of them. I hope you find my comments helpful as it is the least I could do for being treated to so many wonderful images. Thank you all.

Black Nudibranch by Kate Jonker – Pin sharp on the rhinophores, I love the moody lighting of this subtle image. A wonderful nudibranch portrait.

Peekaboo Conch by Cynthia Pierce Liefeld – This is a very simple and effective shot and I love the diagonal with the two eyes peeping out to see what’s going on. Black backgrounds are very trendy at the minute and I think that with a tweak on the settings, it would have worked in the shot too.

Wave Maker by Ahmed Helal – This is an absolute belter. The waves crashing in the background create a magnificent backdrop for the oceanic white tip. Focusing on the shark is spot-on, and you have even managed to get some light on the underside of the shark. I really like this image.

Porcupine Fish by Michelle Taylor – Another simple shot taken at eye level, 45° off centre. The lighting is good and the photographer has captured the personality of the fish, which pops out of the picture, due to good use of depth of field by bokehing the background.

Spotted Moray Eel by Michelle Taylor – This Is Well Done with a really tight depth of field and the focus, which is spot-on, right on the end of his nose.

Longsnout Seahorse by Michelle Taylor – An almost head-on shot, the subject perfectly lit and the right f-stop to give a nicely blurred background. I remember listening to an Alex Mustard talk several years ago where he always advised that if you can get the eyes in get both or get one. One and a half eyes just misses the point, but it’s still a super shot.

Camouflaged by Kate Jonker – One of the hardest animals to photograph underwater is the octopus, especially when they change colour and adapt to their surroundings. This is a lovely shot using the blacked out background to pick out the shape and form of the octopus. Well done Kate.

Wall of Jacks by Simon Briggs – I’m really not a fan of black and white images, it is seriously overused and many of them are just grey. This isn’t grey. This is black and white, and the central focusing and peripheral blurring really draws you in to the middle of this wall of Jacks. Fabulous.

Pink Skunk Clownfish by Wesley Jay Oosthuizen – This particular species of clownfish make great subjects when they swim up to the lens to defend their turf. This is a particularly good shot, as I love the snoot-like lighting, which brings out the face and the colour of the clownfish, yet leaves the background in the shade. A very good photograph indeed.

Juvenile Lyretail by Paul Ansell – The colours in this shot are lovely, especially the blue water behind the sea fan, and the lyretail. Trying to focus on something this small must have been really difficult and taken a lot of patience. I think if you had managed to capture the fish in one of the frames of the fantail, so it had clear blue water behind it, then it would have been even better.

Home Alone by Jose Fontenla – This shot breaks most of the so-called rules of photography. The subject is in middle, it is too small and everything is all a bit messy. However, it really works and I love it. Well done Jose.

I am very small and colourful, blenny by Paul Ansell – This is a really clever way to photograph a small animal. You have got the blenny outlined against a blurred background and it really makes it pop out. Lighting and focusing are perfect.

Giant Map Pufferfish by Simon Dunn – This is a lovely shot with the eye and the texture captured beautifully in the focus of the shot. The motion blurring in the background really makes this side on view of the face standout. An unusual but effective approach and very nicely done.

Jellyfish by Patryck Pinski – This balanced light shot of the jellyfish is really well done. I love the contrast of the evening sun, the purple rim of the jellyfish and the black water. I like trying to get shots when I am on the safety stop, and I would be very pleased if I had got this one.

A Paper Helm for Spartacus by Dominico Luzzi – The detail in the shot is brilliant and as Dominico says,” he reminds me of a Roman gladiator in his hat”. Once again, the use of black background highlights the outline of the subject.

Yellow Buddies by Dominico Luzzi – This is a super shot; the yellow fish against the black background really give the subjects prominence. My only criticism, and it is a small one, is that the dominant fish is just slightly out of focus, whereas the second fish is pin sharp.

Squattie by Yo-Han Cha – Another lovely macro shot and the focusing on the face of a long clawed squat lobster is absolutely perfect. Another example of using a black background to pull out the subject and everything about the picture just works.

Under the Boat by Elaine White – There has been a bit of a shortage of wide-angle shots in this month’s competition, but this one is an absolute cracker. Many of the boxes have been ticked with this shot, rule of thirds, diagonals and use of negative space. The focusing on the southern stingray is perfect and I can feel the warmth of the water as I look at the image.

Nudibranch in Loch Fyne by Elaine White – Black backgrounds to pop the image are really popular this month, and this is another example of how to do it.

Nick’s favourite four: Ahmed’s wave maker, Simon’s Wall of Jacks, Elaine’s Under the Boat & Kate’s Black Nudi.

Nick and Caroline go through the images separately and as you can see, while they agree broadly on the top 10 or so, when we get down to their favourite 4 images, this month they agree on 3 that make it into both their selections.

After much deliberations between our two judges….

Runner-Up – Under the Boat by Elaine White

3^rd – Black Nudibranch by Kate Jonker

And the winner is…

Wave Maker by Ahmed Helal

The top three this month are all very different, but they are images that we would love to have in our portfolio. The main subject of each image really stands out.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Scubaverse.com’s May 2016 Photo Contest is now open! Enter here.