13+ Amazing Entries From The Underwater Photographer Of The Year Competition

As he said in the competition's yearbook, he was hoping to capture some sharks in this shot of South Fakarava in French Polynesia.

Even though that didn't happen, judge Martin Edge thought Kim achieved a perfect split here.

Nimmo spotted this jellyfish while snorkeling around the Isles of Scilly. The waters weren't deep, so he was able to shoot directly upwards and capture the sky behind it, which makes it looks encased in the jellyfish.

According to judge Peter Rowlands, the vibrant colors and creative use of angles made the judges like this image more every time they saw it.

Acevedo described the plight of Caretta caretta turtles like this one, who must dodge plastic waste, ropes, and fishing nets to complete a journey from the Caribbean to Spain's Canary Island that takes "many" years.

Under normal circumstances, this net would have meant the end for this turtle, but Acevedo and another photographer rescued it.

The winning image in this category came from François Baelen, who hails from Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

As far as Martin Edge was concerned, the symmetry of the whale and the way the diver and the calf were aligned made this a shoo-in.

Baelen said that this came down to how co-operative the two whales were since the big one let him shoot so closely and the calf was perfectly curious.

This dynamic wide angle shot came from Konstantin Killer of Germany, who achieved two incredibly difficult feats: Taking a great underwater picture in a pool, which is surprisingly harder than in natural waters, and capturing these fast rugby players in motion.

At least, they are in the wide angle category. After finding this clearing in Mexico's Tajma Ha cenote, Heckmann brought this model named Sonja to make the scene complete.

He doesn't recommend doing something like this without a safety diver with "full cave certification" as he had on-site, though.

Judge Peter Rowlands said this "unfortunate reality" ended up decreasing this image's "wow factor" from the judges.

At least Korostelev didn't almost get bitten by a bear cub just to hear that bad news. He captured this image via a remote-controlled camera.

This year's macro king is Fabio Iardino from Italy, who used panning and long exposure techniques to capture the way this cuttlefish moves in an almost dream-like way.

As Peter Rowlands explained, dual color lighting as employed here can come across as gimmicky and boring if it isn't used effectively, but the judges loved the results here.

Wu mentioned that it was difficult to blend the blue light into the photo naturally while making the mollusk stand out, but he definitely pulled it off.

This year, the award for the most effective use of a wreck went to Rene B. Andersen from Denmark, who actually appears in this photo as the diver above the sunken HMS Audacious' turret.

The ship, now nestled in the bed of Egypt's Red Sea, had a bow that was too large to fit in one photo, so Fredrich stitched multiple images together in a panorama instead.

While Zhang intended this image of a sea horse giving birth to represent new life in the way we can clearly see it, it's also supposed to represent the rebirth of the nation's Minamata region.

That's where this image was taken and it's also a place that was restored through government efforts after severe mercury contamination.

In this case, 16 male humpback whales were competing for a female's affections and, as often happens with these, a lot of dolphins decided to crash the party.

Although the judges called Portelli's ability to maintain his focus while all of this was going on "heroic," one image topped this category. Since its photographer won the whole shebang, we won't see that one quite yet.

These photos are meant to show a particular creature's character and this bright, colorful shot of a very happy stingray from Nicholas Samaras of Greece certainly achieves that.

It's not hard to see why he was this category's winner.

It's found only in the Galapagos Islands and Sudweeks felt it looked like Godzilla giving an impish little smile before causing some mischief.

This photo depicts a parrotfish's desperate, but ultimately futile efforts to dodge a hungry horde of hundreds of sharks.

Barnden's ability to capture such a dynamic and frankly terrifying moment from the midst of the action earned him both the top honors for British Photographer of the Year and the Underwater Photographer of the Year, period.

h/t: Underwater Photographer of the Year