UPY 2025

UPY  Wide Angle - Highly Commended
'Rabbit Fish Zoom Blur'
Nicholas More

I have been taking motion blur pictures for a few years now. I like how the technique adds dynamism to pictures. The picture was taken in Raja Ampat, Indonesia in November 2019 and I spent the morning taking fish portrait images. I came across a school of very friendly Rabbit fish under a jetty and took lots of schooling shots. I started using the extensive zoom range of my Sigma 17-70 combined with a slow shutter speed to create zoom blur images. The picture came together when the school bunched tightly together in a vertical tower with them all facing onto the camera. I hit the shutter and zoomed in at the same time, the flash freezing the central fish with the ambient light creating a Pop-Art like effect.

Judge's comment: I would like to thank Nicholas More for the in-depth arrative regarding how this particular shot was taken. He has explained in detail from start to finish. For those viewers who are interested in the camera settings, they were 200 ISO, f20, 1/8th sec. Superb underwater imagery.
- Martin Edge