UPY 2025

UPY 2019 Compact - Highly Commended
'Reflection of a juvenile platax tera on a leaf'
Jack BERTHOMIER

Many times a year in Noumea (New Caledonia) where I live, the strong winds, heavy rains and high tides reflect in the bays numerous green wastes (flowers, leaves, pieces of wood) as well as other non-green waste (plastics, bottles, ropes). Numerous juvenils use them to hide from predators.
Four times a week I swim with my palms, mask and snorkel looking for those juvenils.
Most common ones are the Sargassum fishes who, when algae get on the beach, swim seaward and stop on everything floating around them. That day, I had the chance to photograph this very rare Juvenile Platax Tera (4cm).

Judge's comment: Compacts may be small in size but they can deliver big images such as this. Lovely negative space in a graphically simple delivery.
Peter Rowlands