30 Mesmerizing Shots That Won The 2021 Underwater Photographer Of The Year Competition

Bored Panda got in touch with one of the winners of the 2021 Underwater Photographer Of The Year Contest—SJ Alice Bennett. Bennett is a UK-born designer, photographer, and diver, now living in Tulum, Mexico.

Bennett has submitted one of her underwater shots titled Trying In—a spectacular sight of the Cenote Mayan Blue cave. "As this shot was taken during cavetraining, we had a pretty intricate plan in place, which is not usually how I run cave shoots. However, the plan failed miserably as the cave student, Max, had multiple equipment failures. Plans are important, but when they fail you need to adapt quickly and deal with a new situation."

"After fixing all the issues on the surface and changing our plan to accommodate our now fairly depleted gas supplies, we descended again. I swam ahead and waited just beyond the beginning of the permanent mainline watching the team swim towards me, followed closely by the lighting assistants creating those beautiful halo effects. Suddenly everything just lined up perfectly, so I pressed the shutter just as Max turned to tie into the mainline," elaborates Bennett in her winning photo description

We also got a chance to talk to another winner in the contest, Renee Capozzola, who won first place in the Wide Angle category for her Sharks’ Skylight masterpiece. The photo depicts two majestic sharks swimming in French Polynesia with a very lucky cameo made by some seagulls seen above.

We asked Renee why she chose to photograph sharks in the first place, and wasn't she at least a tad bit scared of the fact that she'd be swimming with sharks?

"Sharks are one of my very favorite creatures to photograph underwater. Contrary to the stereotype that sharks are dangerous, I have observed them to be very shy animals and one of the more difficult subjects to photograph," explained Capozzola. "Never once in my 17 years of dive photography have I ever felt threatened by a shark. Sharks are awesome creatures and need to be respected, but they are also beautiful animals at the risk of extinction."

"It is my hope that images like this will help raise awareness of the added legal protections sharks need throughout the world. Because French Polynesia does such an amazing job with legally protecting their sharks, the sharks thrive and help to balance the marine ecosystem, making French Polynesia one of the best places in the world to photograph sharks."

It isn't the case that Bennett scoped the Cenote Mayan Blue cave out herself—it was more the case that her diving trainer did it for her. Regardless, she took the opportunity to take some pictures whilst underwater.

"Cenote Mayan Blue is a popular cave training site and the photo was taken during a cave dive training class, so on that day, I didn't pick the location, but the cave instructor did. (He's the diver on the right in the photo.) [And] no, I don't get claustrophobic, I love cave diving, it's one of my favourite things to do. A lot of the places we go are actually quite huge, although, of course, you can also find tight windy tunnels which are usually really fun to dive in," explained Bennett.

Bennett won first place in the Up & Coming category (one of 14 categories in total) of the 2021 Underwater Photographer Of The Year Contest. The aim of this category is to showcase the work of new talents in the competition. But wait, it gets better.

Besides becoming the first place winner of this category, she was also awarded the title of Most Promising British Underwater Photographer.

"I was really stunned when I got that email and, of course, very excited. Cave diving is quite a niche in the global diving community, so it makes me really happy that I get to share photos of the places I love so much and not many people get to see in real life and then winning two categories with one of those photos is just amazing!" said Bennett.

As you might have guessed already, underwater photography ain't no cake walk. It's not just having the right equipment and the right photographic know-how (and not being aquaphobic, of course), but also knowing how to adapt to the new visual environment.

One of the more challenging things when diving underwater with a camera is the lighting, explains Bennett: "For underwater cave photography, it's probably light as there is absolutely none. So all the light we need to make the environment visible needs to be brought in and then used to create visually pleasing scenes."

Like Bennett, Capozzola too elaborated on the challenges of underwater photography, explaining how important some of the necessities and limitations of being underwater are:

"I'd have to say that one of the most challenging things about underwater photography is that it necessitates capturing your images while diving with a limited supply of air, managing your buoyancy, swimming in currents, and being able to quickly read animal behavior. Divers also don't have the luxury of being able to change lenses during a shoot or spend all day at one location."

Lastly, we asked Bennett if she had any favorites in the contest. She had this to say:

"Renee Capozzola's overall winning image is of course spectacular. I also really like Danny Lee's Resplendence - Black Browed Albatross which was third in the Up & Coming category. I love the colours, which give it a kind of silky feel and the expression of the albatross is captured really well."

"And then I also really love Karim Iliya's A Striped Marlin In A High Speed Hunt In Mexico from the Behaviour category. It's such a good dynamic capture that really conveys the hunt and the terror of the small fish really well. "

You can check out more from Bennett on her website, as well as her social media—Facebook and Instagram. You can also watch a video of her explaining her award-winning photo.

Capozzola also shared some of her favorites in the competition:

"I have so many 'favorites' from this year's UPY contest, so it is really hard to select a group of favorites, but some of the images which really grab my attention include these ten: The cave shot Gothic Chamber, the seahorse with light trails Hypno-Campus, the black & white image of the shark and sardines Prey or Predator, the sunset split of the basking shark The Great Migration, the seal swimming upwards Grey Seal Gully, the split shot of the frog at night While You Sleep, the wolf eel with nest Wolfish Nest, the tank at night Reclaimed by the Ocean, the dual shark motion blur shot Blues Brothers, and the iceberg with Lion's Mane jellyfish Red Dot."

You can find all of Capozzola's mentions in this list.