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I’ve come across a few people who have expressed keenness to stroll the aquarium while high and soak up all the fantastical sea creatures in their preferred habitats.

But I am of the opinion that you do not need to be under the influence to be in awe of the magic under the sea.

The colours and patterns are enough on their own to make you feel like you’ve stepped into another reality, no?

That’s just me, and you’re welcome to do you, but try to humour me with the winning images from Scuba Diving’s 2022 Underwater Photo Contest:

Technical expertise and opportunity converge, generating images that stun our readers and stretch the imagination.

These winning photos bring the underwater world to life in ways that make us reach for our fins, itching to feel the pressure of several atmospheres cradling us beneath the surface, holding us steady in the places that bring us endless joy.

It’s a trip all on its own.

Judges and outside observers have fallen in love with the ocean and all it contains thanks to 2 590 submissions to the competition this year.

The overall winning shot went to Boz Johnson who captured this shimmering pair of flying fish in Anilao, Philippines:

The shot took a couple of hours but came out as a stunner:

I have always struggled with surface reflection images—buoyancy and positioning are extremely awkward, and any small chop in the water gives me motion sickness after about five shots—but on this night, conditions were perfect. We spotted several flying fish from the boat in the flat-calm surface, and it didn’t take long to find them once we were in the water.

In the ‘Behaviour’ category, photographers were able to capture and communicate astonishing animal habits and rituals, the results of which are magical, even for those stuck on dry land.

As Scuba Diving notes, “this year’s winners knocked our neoprene socks off and left us wondering, ‘what’s going on here?'”.

In first place, Salvatore Ianniello captured an intriguing interaction between crabs hitching a ride in a barrel jellyfish.

The image was taken in the Mediterranean Sea, near Bacoli, which is located on the Gulf of Naples in Italy:

For the ‘Wide-Angle’ category, photographers chose to capture as much of the ethereal seascape as possible.

Alex Dawson took home the first prize for her haunting shot of a whale carcass underwater in Greenland:

This year’s winners in the ‘Compact Camera’ category snapped some of the most unique and technically masterful image submissions in the entire photo contest, the judges said.

The only parameter for this category was to take photos on a point-and-shoot, non-SLR camera, which made for some interesting takes.

Miguel Ramirez did well enough with his compact camera, boasting first prize in the category for shooting this huge Spanish dancer nudibranch carrying a small emperor shrimp in its gills off Réunion Island:

Finding beauty in the little things were the ‘Macro’ category submissions, with Yury Ivanov taking the crown for his shot of a 15mm long butterfly sea slug “standing” on  algae and scanning the molecular composition of the water in Papua New Guinea:

Volodymyr Ivanenko who took second place in the ‘Macro’ category gets a special mention for this colourful little dude squirting about in Marsa Alam, Egypt:

For all the second and third-place winners in each category, head here.

[source:scubadiving]