As Clear As Crystal by US photographer Jason Gulley is the only underwater photograph among the 15 images chosen by London’s Natural History Museum (NHM) to preview this year’s prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition, the 60th of the annual events.
It has become customary for the NHM, which organises the contest, to release a selection of Highly Commended images prior to the announcement of the WPotY winners in October.
In Gulley’s picture for the Underwater category, taken at Hunter Springs in Florida’s Crystal River, the photographer gazes through clear water at a manatee and a calf adrift among eelgrass. He says that the expression on the calf’s face and the bubbles trailing from its flippers, combined with a hopeful backstory, rendered it a favourite of his many images of mother-and-calf pairs.
An algal bloom caused by agricultural run-off had led to a decline in the river’s eelgrass beds, on which the manatees depend for food. However in this case the local community had acted to restore the habitat and improve water quality – which meant that more manatees than ever had been recorded in the winter of 2022/23.
(Taken with a Nikon Z6 + 14-30mm f/4 lens; Nauticam housing + WACP-2 wide-angle conversion port, 1/50th at f/4, ISO 1000).
Three other marine-life photographs are likely to resonate with divers, even though taken topside. Going With The Flow by UK photographer Tamara Stubbs and entered in the Animals In Their Environment category shows crab-eater seals in sea-ice in the Weddell Sea.
While on a nine-week Atlantic Productions expedition Stubbs noticed that the seals had fallen asleep alongside the ship with their nostrils above the surface after bobbing up to take a breath.
There are around 4 million crabeater seals in the Antarctic and, although not considered endangered or under threat, they are protected by international conservation agreements pending further research into the impact of climate change and tourism on their populations.
(Taken with a Sony α7R II + Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 70mm with polarising filter; 1/320th at f/7.1, ISO 100)
Also in the Animals In Their Environment category, Netherlands photographer Theo Bosboom’s image Strength In Numbers shows how mussels bind together to avoid being washed away from the shoreline. Drawn to species of unappreciated significance, Bosboom captured this image from above in Praia da Ursa, Sintra, Portugal, using a long, thin, macro wide-angle “probe” lens.
Mussels play an important role in creating dynamic ecosystems for other marine invertebrates such as crustaceans, worms and small fish, improving water quality by filter-feeding to extract plankton as well as bacteria and toxins, so preventing them from building up to dangerous levels.
(Taken with a Canon EOS R5 + Laowa 24mm Periprobe lens; 0.6sec at f/32, ISO 200; focus stack of nine images)
Hooked by South African photographer Tommy Trenchard was Highly Commended in the Oceans: The Bigger Picture category, documenting the bycatch of a requiem shark “with its body arched in a final act of resistance”.
Trenchard was travelling on a research expedition on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, intended to document the accidental capture of sharks by fishing-boats targeting tuna and swordfish in the South Atlantic Ocean, and highlighting the lack of effective regulation of industrial-scale fishing in international waters, with 75% of all shark species now at risk of extinction.
(Taken with a Fujifilm X-T2 + 50-230mm f/4.5–6.7 lens; 1/550th at f/5.2, ISO 500)
All the Highly Commended WPotY entries can be found on the NHM website, which also contains full details of the competition and exhibition. Marine-life winners will be announced on Divernet in October.
Also on Divernet: Ballesta named Wildlife Photographer of the Year again, Wildlife contest puts on game-face, Most life in deep-miners' target zone new to science, Mustard’s seaweed among Highly Commended WPOTY images
