UPY 2025

UPY 2018 Up & Coming - Commended
'Beautiful'
Rupert Cornelius

Since I started to take photos I have worked hard to photograph smaller creatures with my wide angle lens. This is not that easy as it's hard to get the lightning right. Some times the results are rewarding, as in this case, where I managed to captured the seahorse and my wife in the same photo. She actually photobombed my scene! She is lucky it turned out well...

Judge's comment: This wide angle macro image has so much depth which originates with the seahorse in the foreground and in particular with the clean eye contact of the seahorse. Notice how the soft coral curves back towards the top middle of the frame. This has the effect of taking the eye of the viewer and the diver with it. The fin now becomes a continuation of that curve and the diver silhouette with torch in hand continues the theme with the small coral growing to meet it. Compositionally, I was in two minds about the leg merger of the diver but the more I look at it the easier on the eye it becomes. Martin Edge