This year’s best in show photo features a rare and fascinating portrait of a Crab-Eating Macaque resolutely swimming through the ocean, captured by Suliman Alatiqi. The photo is a result of weeks of planning and documentation, and it represents the zeal and commitment needed to capture the world’s best underwater image.
Although the AI revolution has quickly changed the global photographic landscape, this year’s winners are a testament to humanity’s creative perseverance over machine.
Shot in Prague,Czech Republic. All the scenes are real, including the food and cakes, which were made from concrete and covered with special coloured foam, photographed underwater.
Shot in Prague,Czech Republic. All the scenes are real, including the food and cakes, which were made from concrete and covered with special coloured foam, photographed underwater.
Shot in Prague,Czech Republic. All the scenes are real, including the food and cakes, which were made from concrete and covered with special coloured foam, photographed underwater.
In order to address generative AI concerns, the competition organisers -the Underwater Photography Guide – this year added two new categories: Underwater Fashion and Underwater Digital Art. These allowed for free reign in editing.
Both professional and amateur photographers were catered for, with three compact camera categories: compact wide angle, compact macro and compact behaviour.
Ocean Art 2023 judges included prestigious underwater photographers Tony Wu, Mark Strickland and Marty Snyderman. All of them advised photographers not to over-process. Marty Snyderman commented “Some very well composed and otherwise technically solid captures to be eliminated was that the post-processing appeared to be too heavy-handed. Colors in those images were “punched up” with vibrance or saturation to the point that subjects or scenes suffered in our view. The same sort of heavy-handedness was evident with the use of sharpening, contrast, and clarity tools. “
No such problems with this striking image of Whitetip reef sharks at Roca Partida, Mexico. Again taken by Suliman Alatiqi
Ocean Art 2023 awarded $120,000 worth of prizes! From liveaboard trips to dive resort stays to underwater camera equipment and gift vouchers. Each photographer got to choose their own prize. The judges evaluated thousands of entries from over 90 countries before selecting the final winning set of images.
Winning Images from the 12th Annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest
