UPY 2025

UPY 2017 Wrecks - Highly Commended
'Capturing History'
Tanya Houppermans

An underwater photographer lines up a shot of the conning tower of the wreck of the U-352 off the coast of North Carolina, USA. During WWII, German U-boats patrolled the waters just off the east coast of the U.S. In May 1942 the U-352 fired upon the USCGC Icarus but missed. The Icarus retaliated, and sunk the U-352 in 120ft of water 26 miles southeast of Beaufort Inlet. During this particular dive the visibility was especially good, so my goal was to capture wide angle images with as much of the wreck in the frame as I could get. As I was lining up the shot, a fellow photographer was focusing on the conning tower, so I decided to include him in the image to give a sense of scale to the wreck.

Judge's comment: Peter Rowlands: I can well imagine the excitement of descending to a familiar wreck and finding that the visibility is way above average; the opportunity to capture a large section for the first time but then another underwater photographer starts to spoil the shot until you realise that he is actually contributing a great sense of scale and definitely adding to the composition.