UPY 2025

UPY  Behaviour - Highly Commended
'Barrel sponge spawning beneath mangroves'
Alex Lindbloom

Having spent years diving this famous mangrove site as the liveaboard photographer, on this particular day I took a little detour from the normal route in search of something new. As this network of mangroves is quite large it didn't take long to find an area free from the dive groups and a nice coral arrangement backlit with the celestial lighting. As I was getting my settings dialed in this sponge suddenly started to spawn. I sort of panicked as I knew this was a unique encounter and I had no no idea how to light this unusual scene with the “smoke” and the dramatic lighting coming from behind, but as it turns out that by just having both strobes placed on either side of the camera it worked just fine. I only managed to get a few good frames from this encounter before the spawning stopped entirely.

Judge's comment: Combining peak of the action behaviour with a joyous sunburst lifted this image and proves that even comparatively inanimate subjects can behave impressively.
- Peter Rowlands