2nd Place, Mirrorless Wide-Angle

Fabio Galbiati

"Mangrove Sunset

Fabio won a Venom50 light from I-Torch!

The story:  In early August 2015 I was in Bangka island, Sulawesi. The first days of our holiday the weather was bad, very strong winds and big waves prevented us from going out with the boat to dive, viz on the housereef was poor.

The situation was really boring and we wanted to go into the water, why not take advantage of the pristine mangrove nearby? Me and my buddy Flavio Vailati decided to spend some hours in these murky waters rich of life.

It was a big surprise, many nudibranchs and flat worms on the roots, snakes and many fishes, the light effects produced by the sun and mangroves were very special, subjects were everywere.

After two mornings, I wanted to make a shot at sunset, with the red light, so we went to our magical forest in the afternoon and after a long search in the outermost part I found the right root with this nudibranch intent to feed.

Did some tests in framing and attempts to restrict the backscatter of these murky waters and I only had to wait for the sun did his duty and.... press the shutter!’

Location:  Coraleye Reef Research Outpost, Bangka Island, North Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Camera:  Olympus OM-D E-M5, Nauticam housing, Panasonic 8mm fisheye lens, dual SEA&SEA YS-D1 strobes.

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