UPY 2025

UPY 2017 Wrecks - Commended
'Jill Bomber'
Marcus Blatchford

I visited Truk Lagoon to dive the infamous "Ghost Fleet". After a week this was a bit of a curved ball compared to the rest of the huge, amazing shipwrecks we dived and simply just a plane. To be more exact a Nakajima B6N "Jill" Bomber. The resort we stayed in ‘Blue Lagoon’, in WW2 was a Japanese airfield. The Jill is around 200m from the bar. My tactics changed for the plane, up until this point I had been aiming for simple photographs but for the Jill I decided to try to map the area using 3d photogrammetry. I captured 408 photos of the aircraft which when fed into some very cleaver whizzbangery resulted in a complete orbital 3d model.

Judge's comment: Alex Mustard: This shot really jumped out at me. I'm sure it was the way in which the author choose to cut around the plane and leave the surrounding background a striking jet black. Composition is strong and the more I saw it the more I liked it. Do take the time to read the author, Marcus Blatchford's 'Back Story' above. I think his account of how that shot was taken will be of great interest to you all. It was clear during judging that this image was produced with photogrammetry, which is allowed in our rules, and also is gaining popularity as a way to use an underwater camera as a research tool in marine archaeology. Marcus has taken it one step further by making a beautiful image too.