The Winners Of The 2020 Underwater Photographer Of The Year Contest Might Take Your Breath Away (30 Pics)

I wanted to photograph a Lemon fish couple with backlight and bokeh balloons. The Dive into Lembeh dive guide found a suitable target and placed the light behind it, and I could take the picture I wanted :)

Background backscatter and backlighting did add nice bokeh balloons to the picture :)

The mighty Barrel Jellyfish to the best of my knowledge, had not been seen around Portland since the Summer of 2015. Myself and some diving friends had waited year after year for their return, as they make in our opinion beautiful subjects to photograph. Within the first few months of 2019 the wish became reality and I sighted my first of many. Snorkeling above this beautiful creature in clear blue water I snapped and snapped away taking seemingly endless photos. Reviewing them later, for me at least, one photo truly stood out... this one.

I had just descended and was getting myself sorted. I had not even turned my camera and strobes on, when I saw this octopus crawling over the reef. The visibility was superb, the guides said it was the best they had seen it in a while. I quickly turned my camera gear on and took a few shots, before this octopus started hunting and moving quickly between the corals.

It’s never nice to see discarded manmade items on the sea floor, but in this case, a common lobster (Homarus gammarus) was taking advantage of the situation. A traffic cone provided a handy vantage point to overlook the seabed as well as a large lobstersized shelter on an otherwise relatively flat landscape.

Ningaloo Reef is home to an array of unique marine animals, including numerous species of sharks such as this grey reef shark. When I found this bait ball I dove down, holding on to some rock to stay steady and motionless hoping that I would go unnoticed by the many sharks surrounding the reef bommie. As I held my breath, seeing nothing but a wall of tiny fish, I hoped that one of the sharks would go straight through and over my head and sure enough one did.

It is moments like these that I am forever grateful for sharks to exist. As the apex predators of the reef the grey reef sharks balance the ecosystem; feeding on the dying, weak, injured and slow fish so only the strongest survive. Without sharks, without healthy fish populations and without an ocean full of life who knows what the future looks life.

During an expedition on a small sailboat, Guillaume Nery, Florian Fisher and myself explored the Antarctica Peninsula by diving below the surface. Although the conditions were extreme with a temperature of -1° C, we documented extraordinary marine life in a fragile ecosystem, such as on this image: crab-eater seal. We also saw leopard seals, gentoo penguins, Antarctica fur seals, and Weddel seals. All these marine animals are affected by global warming with the melting of the ice. Despite the name, Crabeater Seals don’t eat Crabs. Krill make up to 95% of a Crabeater Seal's diet. Crabeater seals have developed a sieve-shaped tooth structure that filters krill, much like whale baleen. They suck up water containing krill, close their jaws, and push the water between their specialized teeth, trapping the krill inside.

Diving with seals is always a privilege and I love the opportunity to photograph them. Like us they have different characters and moods. Trying to capture some of these traits in a photograph is what I have tried to accomplish this year on my visit to the Farne islands. Wide angle and ambient light is my preference. The water was clear enough here to take a picture at some distance and capture this seal in what seems to be a moment of far away contemplation. The lighting, haziness of the water and surrounding fauna help to give, I believe, an ethereal quality to the image adding to the ‘million miles away’ look. The reality is of course this seal is being very attentive of me and choosing to keep its distance!

I fell in love with the super tiny underwater critters only recently, less than 3 years ago during a holiday to Lembeh. I soon returned with my compact camera equipment upgraded for super macro photography by adding a 15+ macro lens. It was during one of my first dives with the new equipment when I took this photo. We spotted this tiny Bryozoan Goby and I really loved how he looked like peeking out from a window of his home. I was lucky to get the shot like this! I only learned later that this species was only discovered 7 years ago and that this one is on the list of many photographers which makes the photo even more special for me!

During an expedition in East Greenland under the ice, one diver took his video lights with him to swim underneath the iceberg. The water was minus 2 degrees with outside winds up to minus 27 degree Celsius, in which we sometimes only could do one dive per day. The whole fjord was frozen with the icebergs frozen into the surface. We had to get our gear on a snowmobile and man-powered sledge every day to an iceberg we thought could be nice and made some holes around it. Only in the water could we see the real dimensions of the whole iceberg.

For several days we visited the resting site of a deceased sperm whale hoping to capture the natural events that unfolded. We were treated to visitations from some of the most beautiful and threatened species in the world and witnessed incredible and natural feeding events. One of the most memorable visitors was this newly identified white shark. The behavior of each shark was unique not just to the species but to individual and their reactions to various divers all very different. It was thrilling to document and witness these creatures, knowing that these images would go on to help scientists put together new knowledge and understanding to help protect our oceans.