2nd Place Compact Behavior
Sheryl Wright
“Anemone Closing Time”
The Story: In July 2022 I joined a Minke Whale liveaboard trip to Cairns and in between encounters also had the opportunity to dive many beautiful coral reefs. I was enjoying my first dive of the trip with a new Olympus TG-6 camera and testing the settings when a beautiful red anemone positioned on the side of a coral bommie caught my eye. I was mesmerised watching the 3 Skunk Anemonefish or Clownfish swimming freely in and out of their hosts protective tentacles, when all of a sudden the anemone started closing. I managed to capture the confused little faces of the fish in that moment before the anemone started opening again and we all breathed a sigh of relief. I was very happy with the image straight out of the camera and did very little post-production. I started to remove the sand grains from the image in editing but decided these small imperfections created a level of authenticity.
Location: Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia.
Equipment Used: Olympus TG-6 Camera, Olympus PT-059 Housing, Anon Video Light, Sola 1200 Photo Light
Camera Settings: ISO 200, F4.5, 1/100 sec
