Despite everything that happened in 2016 here on dry land, aquatic life beneath the oceans surface continued to flourish and photographers did their very best at documenting it and judging by the finalists to the prestigious Ocean Art Photography competition, they did a truly amazing job.
The annual competition has been running for the past six years at this year saw entries from 95 photographers from over 60 different countries that competed in two main categories divided up into different sub categories. Science, which consisted of categories for marine life behaviour, reefscapes, and nudibranchs and camera technology, which was broken down into wide angle, novice DSLR, and super-macro.
Below is a collection of some of the best photographs submitted to the competition but for a more comprehensive look at this years winner make sure the check out the Underwater Photography Guide’s website.
1. 1st Place (Marine Life) – “Tentacle Tornado” by Geo Cloete
2. 3rd Place (Wide Angle) – “Mirror Mirror” by Troy Mayne
3. 4th Place (Macro) – “Dancer Sea Worm” by Lorenzo Terraneo
4. 1st Place (Macro) – “Amazing Squid” by Dennis Corpuz
5. Best of Show – “Blue Lasso” by Matty Smith
6. 1st Place (Portrait) – “Kissing” by Joaquin Gutierrez
7. 1st Place (Marine Life Behavior) – “Mating Toads” by Gino Symus
8. 1st Place (Compact Behaviour) – “Bait Ball Cocoon” by Lawrence Alex Wu
9. 1st Place (Compact Wide-Angle) – “Photographic Chaos” by Stephen Holinski
10. 4th Place (Nudibranchs) – “Mating Pikachu” by Dennis Corpuz
11. 1st Place (Compact Macro) – “Our Enchanted Forest” by Lawrence Alex Wu
12. 1st Place (Supermacro) – “Under My Wing” by Chad Tamis
13. 1st Place (Pool-Conceptual) – “Got It!” by Christian Miller
