UPY 2025

UPY  Up & Coming - Highly Commended
'Banggai Ablaze'
Ross Makulec

I first came across this group of urchins with Banggai cardinalfish in 2m of water at the end of a dive. I only had 5 minutes to photograph them, but I loved the fiery background created by a pair of rusting metal buckets. It was over a month later before I was able to return the site, and I was lucky enough that the urchins and cardinalfish were still in the same place. This time I planned for this open-aperture shot in shallow water by adding a 3 stop ND filter to my lens, and I brought a hole-effect filter to play with as well. I spent the whole dive with the cardinalfish, waiting for them to pose while shooting a shallow depth of field to bring out the orange in the background, broken by the spines of the urchin and a playful swirl from the filter.

Judge's comment: Very nice usage of a filter along with a perfect technical execution. We saw plenty of images with this filter and technique, but this image in Up & Coming was outstanding. The firey coloured background works so well along with the spikes of the sea urchin which gives the image also a creative and dynamic element.

Tobias Friedrich