Underwater Photographer of the Year 2016: Images, Light and Marine Life

Underwater photography can make an enormous ocean feel intimate. A small animal becomes the centre of attention; a beam of light reveals a shape that would be easy to miss; the background dissolves into colour.

The 2016 Underwater Photographer of the Year awards remain a rewarding collection to revisit. These are photographs from that year's competition, with their original makers and titles, rather than the winners of the latest edition.

Gold, by Davide Lopresti

Italian photographer Davide Lopresti received the overall 2016 title for Gold, his image of a seahorse. Start by looking at the animal's outline, then at the space around it. The picture's energy comes from the relationship between the recognisable subject and the less literal background.

The seahorse does not have to fill the frame to hold your attention. Its shape gives the eye an anchor, while surrounding movement and light keep the image from feeling like an identification diagram.

That difference is useful: a wildlife photograph can express atmosphere as well as show what an animal looks like. The photographer's caption is the place to learn about the circumstances and methods behind the result.

Catshark Supernova, by Dan Bolt

Dan Bolt won the British Underwater Photographer of the Year title in 2016 with Catshark Supernova. The image turns attention towards the delicate structure of a catshark egg case and the effect of light passing through the scene.

Notice how much of the photograph is dark. Empty-looking areas are part of the composition: they help isolate the illuminated subject and give it a sense of scale and vulnerability.

You do not need to know every camera setting to appreciate the choice. Ask what would happen if the whole background were evenly bright. The picture would tell a different story.

Read the caption before planning a trip

The competition's official website is the starting point for its winners' galleries and photographer credits. A useful caption can explain location, behaviour and photographic technique that the image itself cannot establish.

Do not assume that an animal is common at a site because one exceptional photograph exists, or that a scene can be recreated on an ordinary holiday dive. Conditions, training, timing and a photographer's patient observation all influence the result.

For a very different underwater production, see Benjamin Von Wong's Bali shoot. Its carefully organised human subjects belong to another photographic genre entirely.

Bring the habit of looking to the shore

You can practise attention without entering deep water. At a permitted coastal viewpoint or an aquarium, spend a few minutes watching one small section instead of trying to see everything at once. Notice where animals shelter, which patterns repeat and how the light changes.

Keep wildlife undisturbed and follow the site's rules. A photograph is more satisfying when the subject can carry on with its day.

The enduring pleasure of these award images is their invitation to slow down. The underwater world contains grand scenery, but sometimes the scene worth remembering is only a few centimetres across.

A 2016 competition gallery, not an all-time verdict

Gold is Davide Lopresti’s seahorse portrait, the image that earned him the overall 2016 title. The gallery also names Dan Bolt’s Catshark Supernova, Pier Mane’s Three Pillars and Marty Engels Dunmore’s Fired up and almost ready to go. These distinctions belong to the 2016 Underwater Photographer of the Year context, rather than proving that the pictures are the best underwater photographs ever made.

The selection ranges across behaviour, wrecks, wide-angle scenes and British waters. That variety is useful: underwater photography is not limited to tropical reefs or large marine animals. Trevor Rees’s pike and trout subjects, Paul Colley’s duck image and the sea-pen goby photograph by Ross Gudgeon illustrate quite different subjects and scales.

Use the titles as a way into the collection rather than reading every photograph as another example of ‘underwater beauty’. A wreck scene, an animal interaction and a close study of a small subject ask the photographer to organise the frame differently. The credits let you follow those choices across a creator’s wider work. The award labels also need to stay attached to the correct images: the gallery includes named honours and other selected photographs, all within the 2016 context, rather than one interchangeable set of overall winners.