3rd Place, Mirrorless Wide-Angle

Laura Tesler

"Water Lillies"

Laura won a week-long liveaboard scuba adventure with Blackbeard's Cruises Bahamas!

The story:  I rarely shoot freshwater… however on this day I was diving in Battle Ground Lake to get my PADI certification to teach Digital Photography with my instructor. I saw these pond lilies underwater and decided they would make a nice place to demonstrate over and under shooting techniques and swam closer with my instructor to focus up through the stems to the sky. As I had been shooting a very wide angle fisheye prime lens, I thought this would be perfect for shooting into the clump of lilies to get the shot I wanted. The lighting was very good for shooting that day, overcast yet bright and I was shallow enough to go with ambient lighting. I took several shots as I really liked the red stems, the lighting, the shapes of the leaves floating on the water and the snails climbing up the stems. Later, while I was reviewing my shots, this picture reminded me of the famous Monet painting with the same name. This picture also spurred me to begin shooting freshwater more after this shoot...!

Location:  Battle Ground Lake, Washington, USA

Camera:  Olympus OMD-E5, Nauticam Housing, two Sea and Sea YS01 strobes, Panasonic Lumix G 8mm fisheye lens

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