A rare and fascinating portrait of a Crab-Eating Macaque resolutely swimming through the ocean, captured by Suliman Alatiqi, tops this year’s Ocean Art underwater photography contest. The photo is a result of weeks of planning and documentation, and it represents the zeal and commitment needed to capture the world’s best underwater image.
1st Place Cold Water Category – Alessandro Giannaccini
An Italian green frog devours a Scolopendra insect in Porta Lake Tuscany. In an instant, the frog skillfully captured and consumed the bug.
Although the AI revolution has quickly changed the global photographic landscape, this year’s winners are a testament to humanity’s creative perseverance over machine.
Shot in Prague,Czech Republic. All the scenes are real, including the food and cakes, which were made from concrete and covered with special coloured foam, photographed underwater.
In order to address generative AI concerns, the competition organisers -the Underwater Photography Guide – this year added two new categories: Underwater Fashion and Underwater Digital Art. These allowed for free reign in editing.
“Ice Cream Nudies”
Goniobranchus kuniei rocking vanilla and blueberry vibes, Reticulidia fungia playing the smooth cream card, and Goniobranchus sp. as a strawberry sensation. Blurring the lines between nudibranchs and ice cream using generative prompts, I created a mashup where sea slugs morph into frozen delights.
Both professional and amateur photographers were catered for, with three compact camera categories: compact wide angle, compact macro and compact behaviour.
1st Place – Imogen Manins in Underwater Compact macro category
Ocean Art 2023 judges included famous underwater photographers Tony Wu, Mark Strickland and Marty Snyderman. After judging the competition, they all advised future competing photographers not to over-process their shots. Marty Snyderman commented “Some very well composed and otherwise technically solid captures had to be eliminated as the post-processing appeared to be too heavy-handed. Colours in those images were “punched up” with vibrance or saturation to the point that subjects or scenes suffered in our view. The same sort of heavy-handedness was evident with the use of sharpening, contrast and clarity tools.”
No such problems with this striking image of Whitetip reef sharks at Roca Partida, Mexico. Again taken by Suliman Alatiqi
Ocean Art 2023 awarded $120,000 worth of prizes! From liveaboard trips to dive resort stays to underwater camera equipment and gift vouchers. Each photographer got to choose their own prize. The judges evaluated thousands of entries from over 90 countries before selecting the final winning set of images.
1st Place in Nudibranch Category – Peter Pogany
Shot in Anilao, Batangas, Philippines
The photos are truly inspiring, especially those that show what can be done with a compact camera. Why don’t you give it a go next year? Or perhaps you entered this year? Let us know in the comments.
Winning Images from the 12th Annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest
