The Winners Of The 2018 Underwater Photographer Of The Year Contest Will Take Your Breath Away

Cenote Nariz is the entrance to a large cave system in Yucatan that I dove for the first time with my 3 buddies Tom Groesslinger, Rainer Schwanner and Michael Faatz. When I saw this perfect window opening into a large room ahead of us I signaled my team to stop. After mind mapping the spot I swam very cautiously through the window and placed 2 strobes in slave mode on either side behind the opening. Then I signaled my buddies to swim through the opening. 2 divers should be in the picture, catching the light from those strobes. For background lightning each one held a slave strobe and pointed it backwards. One diver (out of sight) fired off 2 more strobes for even more background lighting. After many photo dives together we have worked out our own signals, so they knew what I wanted and they performed perfectly.

It was the last day of the Enigma Team shark expedition to Bahamas. The last day and I was still missing a shot I came here to take. We went down. The day before there was a storm and we did not see anything. But they were back. Glorious, mighty, curious but shy four meter long ladies. The Great Hammerheads were slowly circulating around us. It was my last chance. The last opportunity to do what I had in my mind for months. "Stay calm, be patient" was constantly echoing in my mind. Sitting on a soft sandy bottom, facing against the sun I could have only waited. And there she was coming directly at me...

This was taken on the last day of my trip to La Paz, Mexico. Los Islotes is one of my favorite dive sites, well known for its sea lion colony. This group of three were some very friendly juveniles that were playing in a cave. These pups are easily amused and make for cooperative photo subjects! Make sure all equipment is firmly attached, there may have been some lens covers lost in the taking of this photo!

I was practicing sunset split shots in the calm waters around Ras Um Sid when I noticed several people walking down the pier with snorkel gear. My first thought was to wait until they were out of the way, but then I realized that THEY were the story. I wanted to preserve how the colors in the sunset seemed to mimick the colors of the corals so I decided a silhouette shot would meet my needs best.

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.

It took a lot of time and effort to get this picture. I backlit the fish with snooted flash and another close to the dome port. In addition I used another flash for overall lighting. I shot the crab feeding for some time and then it attacked the camera dome!

For six years, the 251 foot long ex-USS Kittiwake sat upright where it was sunk as an artificial reef. On October 8, 2017, it was discovered that powerful surge from passing hurricane Nate had rolled the ship onto its side. I raced to find a dive operator to take me out there, and was able to dive and document the shipwreck the very next day. I was showing those initial photographs to my husband and my friend when I had an idea: "Wouldn't it be funny if a diver with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) was so bothered by the ship being on its side that they tried to right it?" The idea for a photograph was born! My friend Simon Claeys modeled for me in the photograph. In order to make it look authentic, Simon actually 'attempted' to push the ship upright. The bubbles in the photograph are from his effort.

This photo is part of a series of seven consecutive images that I took of an exceptional and very difficult scene to be seen concerning the coupling dance between two seahorses of the Hyppocampus guttulatus species. The whole phase of the coupling lasted 15-20 seconds.

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.

Taken at a depth of 15 meters in 200-250m deep water. Towards the end of the 'Blackwater' dive, Edwin, one of our divemasters, called me over to show me this beautiful Jellyfish, for me only to realise it had a juvenile Trevally within it, and to my amazement, it was wedged between the bell and the tentacles! I had seen many Jack and Jelly combos before but never like this. I shot around 20 frames and right on the last few frames it turned towards me to give me this very unusual portrait of a behaviour I had never seen before.

These sandbar sharks are all male and have probably come together to feed or spawn. A school of females may join them later in the season but in the meantime, they must establish a hierarchy. Sizing each other up, the dominant sharks attempt to secure the better spots nearer the surface.

Corveta General Pereira d'Eça (CORDECA) was a Portuguese corvette that the Navy donated to be sunk and turned into an artificial reef in July 2016 in the island of Porto Santo. The boat lays in about 30m depth, in an area completely deviod of life. I managed to dive this site three times before life started to colonise it. On my second visit my wife modelled for me and allowed me to carefully compose this view of the bow, getting this nice perspective that together with the black & white processing and the absence of sea life makes the boat look like it's in the middle of nowhere and thus telling it’s story. The preparation for this shot included the use by the model of a bright orange lycra suit on top of a wetsuit, guaranteeing a high contrast in the blue water.

This car went through the ice but luckily nobody was hurt. My friend dove the car and told me that it was a perfect photo subject. I drove four hours to get there on a sunny day. We cut a hole in the ice 20 meters away. When I got to the car I could not believe my luck. The car was perfectly placed on a slope and in shallow water so that I was able to get the icy ceiling in the picture. The picture is a manual blend of two images.

Just after the sun had set, I was about to get out of the water as I had been photographing the green sea turtles during sunset but I then noticed a large turtle underneath me swimming very fast. I assumed it was chasing another turtle, so I quickly dove down to see what was going on and then saw two turtles come together and flip upside down. As I tried to capture a few shots of them, the turtles then rose to the surface and started mating there. I quickly changed my settings and proceeded to try and get an over-under shot of this unique behavior which was a challenge as the turtles were splashing about and spinning in a circle. This is the only time I have seen turtles mate although there are many turtles in Hawaii thanks to their strong protection under state law.

In recent years, oceanic white-tip sharks have become rarer in Red Sea but they are back around the offshore reefs of Egypt. Diving with these magnificent predators is a privilege and offers incredible photographic opportunities and to witness the symbiosis with pilotfish. Curious, confident and inquisitive they do not hesitate to approach the divers and I was able to capture this image on our decompression stop.

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.

Red nose juvenile garfishes are numerous to hunt for prey among Uitoe bay.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.

I went to dive this site to photograph Mediterranean black coral but during the dive I discovered various shark egg cases in different stages of evolution. Unfortunately I had a wide angle lens on so it was not possible to get the right shot. The next day myself and the dive guide went back with a macro lens and during the session he called me over because one of the egg cases had started to hatch and a baby shark was emerging! I took some photos s fast I could of this incredible moment.

The idea was to try and transfer a sense of movement to the image; to be able to capture movement frozen in an instant.

Since I started to take photos I have worked hard to photograph smaller creatures with my wide angle lens. This is not that easy as it's hard to get the lightning right. Some times the results are rewarding, as in this case, where I managed to captured the seahorse and my wife in the same photo. She actually photobombed my scene! She is lucky it turned out well...