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Thank you so much for posting these observations and videos, @NicolasREMY . This has been beyond helpful for me to understand judges’ thoughts on this image. This image and I have been on quite a heart-wrenching journey since I shot it at Bass Point on 7 June 2023 (completely without any interference from me – a vegan who would never even feed an urchin to a blue groper, let alone an octopus to a fish!)
Long story short, I was gobsmacked by witnessing the behaviour and fluking the shot (one of 10 images I fired off as the fish swam around madly with the octopus it had just caught but had trouble swallowing). When I got home from the dive, I could only find one distant shot of a wrasse eating a blue ring on Google, so I knew I had something possibly no-one had ever captured before.
I rarely enter my photographs in any competitions other than Ocean Art where I have typically won and placed my categories in the years I’ve entered (usually Compact Behaviour). Knowing the photo was rare, I also entered it in several other competitions.
Nothing. Not even commended. I couldn’t understand why. Truthfully, I wondered if it was time for me to give up entering competitions altogether.
I have never seen a blue ring photo place or win in a photo competition. I suspected it was because the judges were nervous that a a blue ring flashing blue was violation of the ‘No Stressed Animals’ policy most competitions have.
Hearing the judges live comments has given me a real insight into why every other competition avoided even commending the image, despite its rarity. Competitions do not want to be seen to be controversial, awarding images which might need to be disqualified if unethical practices are suspected or proved. (One major underwater photo competition is currently in the process of disqualifying its most recent Grand Winner.)
I’m so glad these judges did a thorough forensic on my image, ultimately recognising the signs that the fish and the blue ring had done battle and that I had only snapped the natural behaviour I had seen.
I’ll unpack all of this more fully in an upcoming article. Thanks so much @NicolasREMY for keeping me updated from Singapore as the judging unfolded live, and for sharing these invaluable competition notes with us. May I please request your permission Nicolas to submit the live judging photos you sent through to me with my upcoming article for Dive Log Australasia? Many thanks in advance. I’ll also quote the judges comments in my article.
I’m happy to answer any questions anyone might have about how this image was made.