UPY 2025

UPY  British Waters Macro - Highly Commended
'The Rush'
Dan Bolt

I have turned my attention to long-exposure underwater photography recently, and a night dive in December proved to the perfect opportunity to continue that experiment. A recent storm had ripped the dying the kelp from the near-by reef and mashed it up into myriad small pieces. This had, in turn, attracted thousands of mysid shrimp (Neomysis integer) into the shallow waters of this shore dive.
All I had to do was to place my torch in the sand, wait for 15 minutes, and a large number of these see-through shrimp were being attracted to the light-beam. Using a slow shutter I managed to capture the reflection in their eyes as they were rocked gently past the torch-light by the small swell that was evident that evening.

Judge's comment: What an excellent usage of technique and subject selection! I loved this highly creative image from the beginning, especially with this color combination. It almost looks like aliens in space, floating through the universe. Perfect technically done and a very good idea by the photographer to make use of it in this situation.

Tobias Friedrich