UPY 2025

UPY 2017 British Waters Compact - Commended
'Coryphella sea slug eating hydroid'
Kerry Lewis

I took this photograph during a trip to the Isles of Scilly, with a group of marine biologists, photographers and keen amateurs. We were collecting habitat and species data for the Marine Conservation Society's Seasearch programme. Underwater images are a fantastic way of recording and reviewing important information, and for sharing the experience with others. I am a particular fan of nudibranchs - or sea slugs - and can easily spend a whole dive searching them out for photographs. I love the challenge of capturing small subjects, and took a few images of this beast - a Coryphella lineata - munching away on the Tubularia hydroid. The site, Hard Lewis Rocks in the Isles of Scilly, was especially colourful, with walls of jewel and plumose anemones. It is the jewel anemones that provide the bright green and pink background in this shot.

Judge's comment: Peter Rowlands: Much is made in photographic circles of large image sensors being able to produce appealing shallow depth of field and this is true but it does not mean that small sensor compacts can't produce it either as this delicate portrait shows. Choosing the pastel coloured jewell anemones make a beautiful complimentary background.