3rd Place Black & White
Piers Baillie
“Snappersphere“
Piers Baillie won a Bluewater Photo or Bluewater Travel Gift Certificate!
The Story: During the COVID pandemic, busy dive sites around the world became empty of divers, as was the case in Koh Tao – a first for the island in over 20 years. A small group of passionate photographers quickly realised this would be a once in a life time opportunity to get amongst the action. More importantly, there was an opportunity for a new story to be told. As a marine biologist and founder of a conservation organisation, the latter was at the epicentre of every shot I lined up. What caught my attention was the more uniform shapes of schooling fish – completely undisturbed. Returning to the same school of bigeye snappers for three consecutive days, I waited patiently until a perfect ball formed. As is often the case, it was the final shot of the day that delivered the perfect shape.
Location: Chumphon Pinnacle, Koh Tao, Thailand
Equipment Used: Sony RX100, Nauticam Housing, Dual Inon Z330, AOI UWL-400 Wet Lens.
Camera Settings: ISO 200, F7.1, 1/80 sec
