Photography

The top underwater photos of 2022 in the Through Your Lens awards

The top underwater photos of 2022 in the Through Your Lens awards
Winner - Behavior. Crabs riding along with a jellyfish. Bacoli, Italy
Winner - Behavior. Crabs riding along with a jellyfish. Bacoli, Italy
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Winner - Behavior. Crabs riding along with a jellyfish. Bacoli, Italy
1/5
Winner - Behavior. Crabs riding along with a jellyfish. Bacoli, Italy
Winner - Compact Camera. A small shrimp hiding in the gills of a nudibranch. Reunion Island.
2/5
Winner - Compact Camera. A small shrimp hiding in the gills of a nudibranch. Reunion Island.
Grand Prize Winner. A flying fish shot from underwater. Anilao, Philippines
3/5
Grand Prize Winner. A flying fish shot from underwater. Anilao, Philippines
Winner - Macro. A butterfly sea slug standing on algae. Papua New Guinea
4/5
Winner - Macro. A butterfly sea slug standing on algae. Papua New Guinea
Winner - Wide Angle. A whale carcass underwater in Greenland.
5/5
Winner - Wide Angle. A whale carcass underwater in Greenland.
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An ice-diver investigating a sunken whale carcass, a flying fish under the water's surface, and crab hitch-hiking on a jellyfish are just a few of the stunning highlights from this year’s Through Your Lens photo contest.

In its 18th year the Through You Lens contest continues to serve up some of the world’s finest underwater imagery. Presented by Scuba Diving magazine, this year the contest attracted almost 2,600 entries across four simple categories: Behavior, Wide-Angle, Compact Camera and Macro.

Grand Prize Winner. A flying fish shot from underwater. Anilao, Philippines
Grand Prize Winner. A flying fish shot from underwater. Anilao, Philippines

The Grand Prize this year went to amateur underwater photographer Boz Johnson for an incredible snap of a flying fish underwater in the Philippines. Johnson said the shot was taken on a night with perfectly still waters, allowing for the stunning reflection.

“We spotted several flying fish from the boat in the flat-calm surface, and it didn’t take long to find them once we were in the water,” said Johnson. “I spent a few minutes shooting before I eventually found a good position for my focus light and strobes that compensated for the issues I was having maintaining buoyancy and stability just below the surface.”

Winner - Wide Angle. A whale carcass underwater in Greenland.
Winner - Wide Angle. A whale carcass underwater in Greenland.

Another highlight in this year’s batch of winners comes from Alex Dawson, a freelance photographer with over 25 years experience. His stunning Wide-Angle category winner depicts free diver Anna Von Boetticher under sea ice in Greenland investigating the skeleton of a whale.

“As I got down under the ice on the first dive and my eyes started to adjust to the darkness, I was shocked that the whale carcass was so intact and huge,” explained Dawson. “Anna started diving around the whale bones, so I placed my external lift farther away to get some depth.”

Take a look through our gallery at a few more winners from this year’s contest.

Source: Scuba Diving Magazine

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1 comment
1 comment
ljaques
Beautiful photography. The mirrored surface over that flying fish is stunning. It reminds me of the trip back to the CA mainland from Catalina Island many years ago. As we took off in the seaplane, several dozen flying fish escorted us out. It was beautiful! Once we got to speed, we took off and hit the air, tilting to 50 degrees. My seat pair came off the tracks and "we" fell a foot back into the gentleman's lap behind me. 2 seconds of terror, then I realized I hadn't been ejected from the plane, and my grin was so wide my head unzipped, nearly falling off. A very memorable flight.