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Underwater Photo Contest Entries By Susannah H. Snowden-Smith

302 Entries Found: Page 7  of  12
"Turtle In The Sunlight"
A turtle glides over the reef under beautiful rays of light.
Spotts Beach, Grand Cayman
"Expectant Parents" - A pair of two claw shrimp, including one with eggs, in the bottom of a purple vase sponge. Two claw shrimp are a rare find on Grand Cayman; these are the only ones I've seen in over 300 dives on the island!
Runner Up - worthy of note but not a medal winner - an equal 4th place if you like! Runner Up 2016

Final RoundThrough to 2016 awards final round judging
Silversides! Photo 2 of 2
Silversides race across the north wall of Grand Cayman, completely hiding the colorful sponges and wall behind them. See Photo 1 to see the silversides and colorful reef seconds earlier!
Silversides! Photo 1 of 2
Silversides huddle together along the north wall on Grand Cayman. Seconds later they raced in formation across the colorful sponges, completely covering them - See Photo 2 to see the silversides covering the sponges!
"Face To Face"
Queen angelfish are normally quite skiddish, swimming off if a diver comes near. This one was eating a sponge and was more concerned with lunch than with me. I took this photograph when it momentarily looked up from the sponge.
shortlistedShortlisted!
"A Turtle In Motion Tends To Stay In Motion"
A hawksbill turtle races across a reef on the North Wall of Grand Cayman. I used a slow shutter speed and panning to track the turtle as it raced past.
"Pink Castle"
A secretary blenny keeps an eye out for lunch from its home in a pink sponge. I used a medium aperture to keep both the blenny and sponge "castle" in focus, and waited for the blenny to look upward to take this shot.
"Just Below The Surface"
A mako shark cruises just under the surface of the water as light rays penetrate deep below.
"Lace"
Look for a few seconds and watch the fish appear! A slender filefish--and its eye--is framed by a seafan. I floated gently into place to frame the eye, and positioned my strobe in order to backlight the fish and seafan.
"Silver Rush"
Silversides rush over sponges on the North Wall. They arrive on Grand Cayman once a year...if we're lucky. They're amazing to photograph--racing in large packs to evade predators.
shortlistedShortlisted!
"Take Me To Your Leader"
A graysby fish stares menacingly at the camera. No Photoshop, I set up my strobe lighting for a creepy effect, to go with the look I was getting.
shortlistedShortlisted!
A diver explores the engine room of the ex-USS Kittiwake. I used a slave strobe and placed it so it would burst light through the metal structure in front of the diver.
Silver Medal Silver Medal 2016

Final RoundThrough to 2016 awards final round judging
"Face To Face"
A 7 1/2 foot long blue shark presses its face into my camera dome port. This shark came up to me over and over again, emerging from under the boat, or coming straight into my dome port.
shortlistedShortlisted!
"Stars Above And Below"
Starfish are seen both through the surface of the water and below. No Photoshop: I used my wide angle dome port for this shot, carefully angling my camera housing in order to get both the over and under water views.
shortlistedShortlisted!
A two claw shrimp peers out from a purple vase sponge. This kind of shrimp is a rare find in Cayman! I used a shallow depth of field to focus just on the shrimp's eyes.
Cayman's beautiful North Wall, rich with life! An anenome, lots of little blue chromis, a snapper, sponges, colorful coral... I used my wide-angle dome port extension with my fisheye lens for a forced vingette.
A tiny spotted cleaner shrimp climbs on a warty corallimorph anemone. I lit the shrimp with one strobe, and lit the background with my second strobe to provide backlighting.
"Starry Stingray Splash"!
No Photoshop
Over-under at Stingray Sandbar, Grand Cayman
Fluorescing Goby - "Tie-Dye"
No color editing was done to this photo. The rainbow of colors is from shooting with my Nightsea fluorescence kit. The filters "excite" the fluorescence in the goby and coral.
A brightly colored starfish rests on seagrass just below the surface. I took this shot with my camera completely submerged, and utilized a Snell's window to include the sky and clouds.
"After The Dive"
We surfaced from a magical dive to this magical light.
Photographed with a small aperture so that the sun burst through the cloud with a star effect.
"Racing Stripes"
A juvenile spotted drum on coral, shot with a slow shutter speed and panning.
Runner Up Monthly HotShots shortlistedShortlisted!
Final RoundThrough to 2016 awards final round judging

editor's comments

Editor's Comment
Great creative shot
I prepared my camera with a fisheye lens, but with my extension ring on the port to create a false vignette. I was hoping for some larger marine life to utilize this effect. Perfect for when a goliath grouper--unusual for Cayman--showed up!
A colorful goby models for the camera atop star coral. I used a very shallow depth of field to focus only on the goby's eyes, and to make the rest of its translucent body blur into the backgruound.
A diver explores a swim through as light filters down from an opening in the ceiling.
Snapper Hole, Grand Cayman
shortlistedShortlisted!
"Pink Peppermint"
I set off to photograph a peppermint shrimp, and looked inside dozens of vase sponges until I finally found this one. I used a large aperture to keep just the eyes in focus and blur the background into a soft pink.
"Sunburst Stingrays!"
Over-Under at Stingray Sandbar
No Photoshop
302 Entries Found: Page 7  of  12