UPY 2025

UPY  Wide Angle - Runner Up
'Sunset Ray'
Andy Schmid

I had heard and seen so many good things about the "Tuna Factory" dive site close to Malé in the Maldives and was looking forward to diving this site hoping to see Guitar Rays or big sharks like Bull or Tiger Sharks that are regularly seen there. Because it was the last dive on a liveaboard trip before I flew out early the next day however I had to stay shallow. So while everybody else went deep looking for bigger fish I stayed up in the shallows and played around with what the site had to offer: schooling Bannerfishes, Stingrays and Moray Eels that are looking for tuna skins, bones and heads that are dumped into the ocean by the tuna factory. I quickly found a great spot where I could shoot against the setting sun, framing the schooling Bannerfishes and the Pink Whiprays that were constantly circling the area.

Judge's comment: Bannerfish swirl around a large stingray, in this perfectly timed photo, while sunlight dances behind. At the right time, in the right place, the ocean can be alive with life, with movement and with light. This photo takes us there. - Alex Mustard