DIVELOG JUNE 406

Ta-Daaaa! Image 6 of the photo series. Photo Credit PT HIRSCHFIELD

Final Slurp! Image 7 of the photo series. Photo Credit PT HIRSCHFIELD

suspect it's because judges are nervous that an octopus flashing blue is a violation of the ‘No Stressed Animals’ policy most competitions espouse. (Never mind that every animal being predated upon is in a stressed state, probably also true of most marine animals in the presence of humans with or without cameras. But the infamous and much maligned blue ring has a fearsome reputation for wearing its timid little heart on all eight of its sleeves ...) On 14 April, Nicolas Remy (founder of online The Underwater Club which I'm a member of) is in Singapore. He's in the audience of the live judging at the ADEX 2024 Voice of the Ocean Underwater Photo Competition. This competition is my last remaining hope. I ask Nicolas if he might give me any insights about how my image progresses through the competition as it unfolds. He messages me that my photo has made it to the Top 10 Finalists for the Compact Camera Underwater Photo of the Year. He videos the comments from some of the judges explaining their scores, their discussion extending for over three minutes.

William Tan : ' The fish is eating the blue ringed octopus. If this is real, it's a perfect 10 for me. But I do not know. I'm gonna play it safe .' Tobias Friedrich : ' I think it's an amazing moment. If you look at the image in the first second it's like Wow - what a moment to capture. I only give it a lower rating because in my eyes unfortunately it's not a really, really good image which is outstanding from an image point of view. I mean you can't compose it probably better in that situation. I'm not saying the photographer has done anything wrong, because it's so hard to capture this moment at all. You can't really focus on how you want to compose the image at that moment. It's still incredible, but this is a photo competition. So this I why I give the lower rating.' Yoshi Hirata : 'I love this photo to win ... There's a scar, there's another scar. So they've been fighting and they go into this place. It catch the feeling of the story. For competition, it's a bit different, it's better. I can catch the feeling.'

All done! Image 8 of the photo series. Photo Credit PT HIRSCHFIELD

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DIVE LOG Australasia #406 - June ‘23

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