“During an expedition in Antarctica Peninsula with filmmaker Florian Fisher and freediver Guillaume Nery, we explored and documented the hidden face of this iceberg where crab-eater seals have taken up residence on icebergs that drift at the whim of polar currents.” — Greg Lecoeur
Greg Lecoeur/UPY2020
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“At the end of a session of free diving, I noticed a soccer ball, in the distance and on the surface. Intrigued I approached it, and then I noticed that below it was an octopus that was being pulled along by the current. I do not know what it was doing under the ball, but I think it is training for the next football World Cup!” — Pasquale Vassallo
Pasquale Vassallo/UPY 2020
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“I have been taking motion blur pictures for a few years now. I like how the technique adds dynamism to pictures. The picture was taken in Raja Ampat, Indonesia in November 2019 and I spent the morning taking fish portrait images. I came across a school of very friendly Rabbit fish under a jetty and took lots of schooling shots.” — Nicholas More
Nicholas More/UPY 2020
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“This split shot of the Georgios shipwreck was taken in Saudi Arabia in the area of NEOM, along the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea. In 1978, this large cargo ship became stranded on a bed of corals and then had a large fire. The wreck is now known by many locals as the “Saudi Titanic” and sits halfway out of the water on the bow side and in roughly 80 feet of water on the stern side. There is a large school of tiny fish that live inside and there is abundant coral growth on the ship itself, which now serves as an artificial reef for many marine organisms. I wanted to capture this wreck as a split to highlight more of the ship but at the time the light hit the port side, it was a bit wavy so I was fortunate to have gotten this shot!” — Renee Capozzola
Renee Capozzola/UPY 2020
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“This winter, I went diving with some local fishermen. At 6 in the morning I was already in the water, as the nets were raised at first light. As the fishermen quickly hauled on the nets, I tried to take some shots of trapped fish still suffering in the mesh, such as this tuna.” — Pasquale Vassallo
Pasquale Vassallo/UPY 2020
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“I went looking for the seahorse every week, and eventually found it in August. It was posing so nicely around a pipe that I had ample time to photograph it with the snoot.” — Rooman Luc
Rooman Luc/UPY 2020
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“And it was during a freediving at 10 m that I saw this whale caming so close to me: it looks at me very intensely and says “Hello” in one breath exhaling so many bubbles.” — Paolo Isgro
Paolo Isgro/UPY 2020
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“The Bahamas has been a shark sanctuary since 2011 but Mangroves aren’t protected yet and that’s where these lemon shark pups spend the first 5-8 years of their lives.
I was standing in knee-high water, trying to hold my camera still, waiting for the sharks. After less than one hour the little predators came closer and finally swam around my feet and my camera, bumping against me and trying to taste my strobes.” — Anita Kainrath
Anita Kainrath/UPY 2020
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“A school of uniquely patterned spotted eagle rays passes beneath me on an unforgettable dive in the Maldives.” — Henley Spiers
Henley Spiers/UPY 2020
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“This tiny Common froglet is less than 1cm in length. It is so weightless it can balance on single, silken stands of Spirogyra. These algae filaments, an abundant and vital first link in freshwater food webs, reproduce rapidly leading to thousands of individual strands.” — Laura Storm
Laura Storm/UPY 2020
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“Thankfully, the goby really seemed to enjoy the prime spot at the top of the coral head so it kept coming back to have its picture taken, not minding my close approach one bit.” — Hannes Klostermann
Hannes Klostermann/UPY 2020
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“This image shows my very favourite of the species, the thorny sea horse. Over time, I have tried many different techniques, with varying degrees of success, including backlighting, side lighting, snooting, panning, double exposure and silhouette shots.” — Nur Tucker
Nur Tucker/UPY 2020
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“It’s never nice to see discarded manmade items on the sea floor, but in this case, a common lobster (Homarus gammarus) was taking advantage of the situation. A traffic cone provided a handy vantage point to overlook the seabed as well as a large lobstersized shelter on an otherwise relatively flat
landscape.” — Kirsty Andrews
Kirsty Andrews/UPY 2020
