MontPhoto, international photography contest (Mountain and Nature Photography Awards)

1st Award
Into deep space de Claudio Ceresi de san pietro in casale (Bo)
Place: Manado , North Sulawesi
Description: During a night dive in Manado I found this SQUID (Loligo sp.) that followed me all along the dive. Then I realised it was using my lights to hunt. With a strobe at low intensity, I managed to shoot while it was trying to eat and the background that came out it gave me the idea for the title. In this case, the strobe did not create enough darkness; I cleared the subject and gave it some clarity and here is the result.

Claudio Ceresi

1st Award

Honor award
Reproducción anfibia de Juan Cuetos de Ribeira (A Coruña)
Place: Río Barbanza-Pobra do Caramiñal-Galicia-España
Description: In spring, common toads (Bufo bufo) look for water to breed. The males wait for the arrival of the females to perform the amplexus and then fecundate their eggs. The eggs are laid amid the vegetation.

Juan Cuetos

Honor award

Honor award
Bubble Troubles de Juan Pablo Plaza Pozo de Majadahonda (Madrid)
Place: Anilao (Filipinas)
Description: "A small BUBBLE CORAL SHRIMP (Vir philippinensis) looks over the reef from its privileged balcony, a specimen of BUBBLE CORAL (Plerogyra sinuosa) at about 10 meters deep. On the reef, not everything we see is what it seems to be. Just over 30 years ago, this tiny bubble coral shrimp was discovered and cataloged. With an almost transparent body, these prawns usually live in pairs in corals of the type Plerogyra or Physogyra."

Juan Pablo Plaza Pozo

Honor award

Honor award
El Cosmos del azul de Edgar Eduardo Becerril García de La Paz (Baja California Sur)
Place: Archipiélago Espíritu Santo, Baja California Sur, México
Description: A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) baby approaches the camera in a hidden cave. Here, sea lions swim, play and hunt, and the photographer experiments with the light, with the cosmos of blue.

Edgar Eduardo Becerril García

Honor award

Honor award
Elevation de Marco Gargiulo de Sorrento (Napoli)
Place: Sorrento
Description: SHORT-SNOUTED SEAHORSE (Hippocampus hippocampus)

Marco Gargiulo

Honor award

Honor award
The Wall de Geo Cloete de Cape Town (Western Cape)
Place: Atlantic Seaboard, Cape Town, South Africa
Description: South African BOX JELLYFISH (Carybdea branchi). In 2016 I published a photo of a rare and yet to be described behaviour I got to witness of these Box Jellyfish. The scene was of a very large congregation. From the base a number of “columns” stretched up high into the water column. Due to the sheer size of the smack of jellyfish, it was impossible to capture the complete scene in a single frame, even though I was using a fisheye lens. I am publishing a photo depicting a portion of the base of the smack, illustrating the dense concentration of jellyfish.

Geo Cloete

Honor award

Honor award
Flashes de Giacomo Marchione de La loggia ()
Place: Lembeh strait . Indonesia
Description: Portrait of a cowfish (Ostraciidae) using a Snoot Retra with a single flash that highlights its appearance. I used double exposure to take the picture in order to play with the solar rays coming from the sea surface.

Giacomo Marchione

Honor award

Honor award
Fertilized de Claudio Ceresi de san pietro in casale (Bo)
Place: Bangka island , North Sulawesi
Description: While diving, I found a pair of breeding CLOWNFISH (Amphiprioninae). In this shot the male fertilizes the eggs that have just been laid by the female. In this case, the strobe did not create enough darkness; I cleared the subject and gave it some clarity and here is the result.

Claudio Ceresi

Honor award

Honor award
The Next Generation 1 de Marc Casanovas Felix de Barcelona (Barcelona)
Place: Tossa de Mar
Description: I followed this female octopus (Octopoda) for several weeks at the beginning of the summer and the last day I visited it I was lucky to witness the hatching of the eggs, and release of hundreds of small octopuses into the water. During the incubation period, the female does not leave the hole, she protects the eggs from possible predators and oxygenates them frequently until the moment they mature and hatch. During this period the mother does not eat food and she therefore gets very weak until the young ones are born. Then she probably dies.

Marc Casanovas Felix

Honor award

GALLERY MONTPHOTO 2018

Underwater world