Sea Creature Photos: True Beauty Revealed in Winning Underwater Pictures

By: Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
Published: 04/19/2012 01:42 PM EDT on LiveScience

A dashing-red sea slug that seems to be hamming it up for the camera in the U.S. Virgin Islands has come into focus in this year's winning underwater photograph in an annual contest put on by the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science.

More than 700 images were submitted for this year's underwater photography contest, Ximena Olds' photo of the headshield sea slug against a brilliant background of green seagrass taking home the "best overall" award. Olds is a local Key Biscayne, Fla., resident.

(Scroll down for more)

This amazing jellyfish photograph received nearly half of the 1,221 online votes in the underwater photography contest. The photo was taken by Todd Aki from Florida.

The photos were judged by a panel of experts that included: photographer and UM lecturer Myron Wang; underwater photographer Nicole Wang; and Michael Schmale, a professor at Rosenstiel School Marine Biology & Fisheries. They awarded prizes in three categories, macro, fish or marine animal portrait, and wide angle. Best overall photo was the equivalent of first place. [See Photos of the Contest Winners]

The first-place award in the macro-photography category went to Canadian Todd Mintz's photo of cute-as-can-be yellownose gobies (Elacatinus randalli) peering out from brain coral in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean.

A swirl of lionfish, Pterois species, in the Red Sea snapped by Mark Fuller of Israel snagged first place in the wide angle category.

Though not a category, the judges awarded the "Best UM Student Photo," which went to Kyra Hartog's image of a whale shark. The whale shark is one of the most mysterious creatures and the largest fish in the world. They live their lives mostly out of sight; in fact, little is known about where they go and what they do when they aren't in shallow-water feeding groups in Mexican and other waters during springtime. Satellite-tagging studies as well as a genome-sequencing project are underway that could shed light on the beasts.

"The quality of photos keeps getting better each year," Wang, who has been judging the contest since its inception, said in a statement. "Judging becomes more difficult when you have so many wonderful pictures to choose from."

For Wang, "this year’s standout was the great picture of the juvenile sperm whale taken by Douglas Kahle in Dominica – it is spectacular!" (That photo took home first place in the animal portrait category.)

In a new addition to the contest, an online "fan favorite" poll garnered more than 1,200 votes on the school's blog. The winner, Todd Aki's shot of a giant and graceful jellyfish, took nearly half of the votes.

The annual underwater photography contest is open to all amateur photographers who earn no more than 20 percent of their income from their photography.

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In Photos: Spooky Deep-Sea Creatures
Image Gallery: Mysterious Lives of Whale Sharks
Images of Underwater Photography Contest Winners, 2011
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

This dashing headshield sea slug photo taken by Ximena Olds (Florida) snagged "best overall" award.

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Comments

[exec utivegifts]

03:12 PM on 04/28/2012

What a wonderful and beautiful creatures that these photographers have captured. We, also see what is hiding in this world. Congratulations to all that has entered. Well done.

[karen lyons kalmenson]

06:38 PM on 04/20/2012

what beauty rests in
the world, so deep
our creator always working
even when
we are asleep☺♥☻

[photosmoke]

03:59 PM on 04/20/2012

I would hate to be a judge. I think at least half of those are first place shots.

[sparkygirl91]

03:03 PM on 04/20/2012

What beautiful pix - the Jellyfish IS truly gorgeous - in honor of Earth Day. Thanks for sharing.

[destiny smith]

01:39 PM on 04/20/2012

where are the pictures?

[sparkygirl91]

03:05 PM on 04/20/2012

Last sentence of first paragraph, there's a link (in green lettering) - "See Photos of the Contest Winners". Great photos.

[destiny smith]

03:41 PM on 04/20/2012

Thank you they are very beautiful

[aphextwin07]

12:34 PM on 04/20/2012

how bout posting the pics directly on this page instead of all the useless unrelated content clutter and other spam?

[sparkygirl91]

03:07 PM on 04/20/2012

Blah, blah,blah - the link's clearly provided in the first paragraph; all you have to do is click on it.

[hemipwr54]

12:28 PM on 04/20/2012

All 12 pictures are stunning.

[gancy0217]

12:13 PM on 04/20/2012

Click the links above the second picture to see more

[kimbelle10]

11:46 AM on 04/20/2012

Aw they're so pretty & the slug is so cute...

I thought there'd be more but okay...Lol!

If I wasn't so close to have a panic attack when being in open water like that..submerged (I love the ocean don't get me wrong, but it's so vast etc.), then I'd go diving or something, that'd be awesome.

[buzzard1]

11:25 AM on 04/20/2012

Two really? wtf were are the pics?waste of time

[ladyrix]

11:02 AM on 04/20/2012

There certainly some kinda strange world in the waters...and they are intelligent.

[mijjy]

02:11 PM on 04/20/2012

Most definitely!!!

[DeAnna West]

10:50 AM on 04/20/2012

It would have been nice to see more than two!

[photosmoke]

11:08 AM on 04/20/2012

Yeah, it's not like they didn't have more. I love to see those pictures. Usually very colorfull and so unique. It should have said scroll down for another one, not scroll down for more.

[SaucyD]

02:19 PM on 04/20/2012

There are twelve pics. They have a link above -- [See Photos of the Contest Winners]