UPY 2025

UPY 2019 British Waters Macro - Winner
'Beauty in the Mud'
Arthur Kingdon

Easter 2018 found me diving in Loch Duich on the west coast of Scotland. My target subject was the fireworks anemone which are found on the muddy sea bed towards the head of the loch. However, while searching for these, I spotted a length of plastic pipe lying partially buried in the mud. Moving cautiously to avoid stirring up the silt, I reached the open end and was delighted to find this collection of marine life. A long clawed squat lobster posed proudly outside his man-made home, which he shared with numerous brittlestars, while dainty sea loch anemones decorated the entrance. To capture the beauty of this scene I chose to restrict the lighting to one strobe, snooted for a spotlight effect to avoid illuminating the unattractive background and angled to avoid lighting the interior of the pipe and to give a black background to the squat lobster.

Judge's comment: A mantra of mine is 'It's not what it is. It's where it is' and this long clawed Squat lobster is in a perfect position to make a memorable image. The author, instead of 'blasting' it with light, has gone in the opposite direction by restricting the strobe into a snooted spotlight in order to illuminate just the features of the lobster and the dainty sea loch anemones. It's an example of 'Isolation lighting' at its very best. A great deal of uw photographers invest their time in what they want to illuminate. This is an example which in my opinion illustrates features that they do not want to illuminate, hence the punchy black background and the soft delicate hues of dark sand, facial features topped off by the sea loch anemones.
Martin Edge.