UPY 2025

UPY 2019 Macro - Commended
'Bluebonnet'
Matthew Sullivan

The bottles in the mucky haven under the dock at God's Pocket Resort are loaded with Mosshead Warbonnets and I spent quite a while simply snooting the fish. The images looked flat. The mouth of the bottle was lined with small white barnacles which I realized might reflect light if I angled it properly without lighting up the bottle itself. I moved my light off camera, placed it in the sand and then went to work getting both the snoot and the blue light to fall where I wanted, lighting up the hair and face of the fish, and the rim of the bottle.

Judge's comment: Shooting a tiny subject with a snooted strobe is a stern challenge to your dexterity in tropical water, let alone in the frigid waters of Canada, where fingers are numb and enclosed in thick, cumbersome gloves. The result cleans up a messy scene into a graphically powerful portrait of a characterful fish.
Alex Mustard