The annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year has produced a number of outstanding underwater images from divers. Four photos, together with the story behind them are featured here.

Harald Slauschek (Austria)
The Underwater World - Highly Commended Print

Hawksbill turtle eating soft red coral

I encountered this hawksbill turtle at a reef drop-off in the southern Red Sea, and we drifted together along a light current. But then the turtle got entangled in sea whip (a horny coral with long, cylindrical filaments). I realised she needed help, and so I pushed the sea whip carefully aside, and we continued our drift along the reef together. The turtle then paused to eat a red soft coral, which gave me a wonderful opportunity to take a series of portraits showing its powerful beak, capable of biting off chunks of the hardest of coral. Even though hawksbills are endangered, they are still hunted for their shells as well as for food.
Nikon F90X, with 18-35mm lens; 1/125 sec at f8; Fujichrome Sensia 100; flash; Sea & Sea NX90Z housing; Sea & Sea YS120TTL flash.

Angel M Fitor (Spain)
The Underwater World - Highly Commended Print

Spotted ray 'face'

This picture was taken off south-eastern Spain at a depth of 36 metres. The spotted ray is common in deeper areas here but quite rare in shallower water. I came across a dozen of them while looking for razorfish to photograph. Resurfacing to change my camera lens, I prayed that the rays would still be there when I dived back. I struck lucky. After swimming for ages below several of them -- and wasting nearly all my film looking for this ventral view -- I had to do several decompression stops on the way back to the surface. But I got the shot I wanted of the mouth.
Nikon F90X with 60mm lens; 1/125 sec at f11; Fujichrome Velvia 50; Aquatic housing; strobe.

Barbara Karen Evans (South Africa)
The Underwater World - Highly Commended Print

School of crescent-tail bigeyes

Floating over a reef off southern Mozambique, I saw a large, dark shape coming towards me out of the blue. As it approached, I realised it was a school of crescent-tail bigeyes, the individuals packed tightly together. Admiring how well the shoal must fool predators, I regretted not fitting my wide-angle lens, which I could have photographed the whole scene with. Slowly, holding my breath so as not to scare the bigeyes away with my bubbles, I got close enough to photograph the pack's leaders. Red is one of the first colours to be absorbed under water, and so I didn't realise at the time just how red these fish really were. The resulting picture was a pleasant surprise.
Nikon 801 with 60mm macro lens; 1/60 sec at f8; Fujichrome Velvia; Subal housing; 2 Nikonos SB105

Douglas David Seifert (USA)
Gerald Durrell Award, for Endangered Wildlife - Highly Commended Print

Great white shark circling

I spent six hours a day for four days in an anti-shark cage off the island of Guadalupe, west of Baja California, Mexico, waiting for the perfect combination of clear water, sunlight and dramatic poses from the great whites that gather here. In the autumn, these sharks migrate down from northern California, presumably to take advantage of the abundant food - tuna, in particular. This individual was an adolescent male, but he was already more than three metres long and very curious about the cage. At one point, he rammed into it, snapping a weak point in the aluminium bars in the process, and pushed his head inside. There was nothing else to do but grab his snout, push him back out and bend the bar back to its original place.
Canon D60 with 16mm fisheye lens; 1/250 sec at f8; digital 200 ISO; Sea & Sea housing; Ikelite strobes.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is jointly organised by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
An exhibition of the photographs opens on 23 October 2004 at the Natural History Museum, London.


News Index Page