Crab-Eating Macaque shot wins world’s largest underwater photo contest

This year’s best in show photo features a rare and fascinating portrait of a Crab-Eating Macaque resolutely swimming through the ocean, captured by Suliman Alatiqi. 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.

“Lunch Time”
1st Place Cold Water Category – Alessandro Giannaccini
Shot in Porta Lake, Tuscany, Italy

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.

Alice in Wonderland
Winner of the Underwater Fashion Category Lucie Drlikova
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 nudis
2nd Place Underwater Digital Art by Francisco Sedano Vera
“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.

“Underwater Fireworks”
1st Place – Imogen Manins in Underwater Compact macro category

Ocean Art 2023 judges included prestigious underwater photographers Tony Wu, Mark Strickland and Marty Snyderman. All of them advised photographers not to over-process. Marty Snyderman commented “Some very well composed and otherwise technically solid captures to be eliminated was that the post-processing appeared to be too heavy-handed. Colors 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 

sharks
Whitetip reef sharks by Suliman Alatiqi. Winner of the wide-angle category

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.

“After the Wedding”
1st Place in Nudibranch Category – Peter Pogany
Shot in Anilao, Batangas, Philippines

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