Welcome to Issue #63 of Inside Scuba

In Issue #63 of Inside Scuba, we explore one of diving's great mysteries — why the Red Sea's reefs remain so extraordinarily vibrant despite massive dive traffic and a warming world, and the fascinating science behind their remarkable resilience. We also tackle a perennial puzzle for underwater photographers: the difference between macro and portrait competition categories, and how getting that distinction right can change your competition results. Plus, Alex Mustard and Matthew Sullivan from The Underwater Photography Show pull back the curtain on the darker side of photo competitions — from faked entries to rights-grab pitfalls — and we have a cracking video of a fresh-faced snorkeller chasing spawning minnows through Appalachian mountain streams.

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What’s happening in this edition?

• Why Are Red Sea Reefs Still in Such Great Condition?
• Dive News
• Macro or Portrait? How to Choose the Right Underwater Photography Competition Category
• When Photo Competitions Go Bad
• Video Highlight
• Summary

Why Are Red Sea Reefs Still in Such Great Condition?

I dropped into the blue above Shark Reef last week and had one of those moments that reminds you why you got into this sport in the first place. The reef in front of me was full of purple soft corals, flashing orange anthias, yellow fire corals, and water of the deepest blue imaginable. Schools of batfish, snappers, and parrotfish were all around me as I looked out into the blue — it was pure, unspoilt diving paradise, all in a spot that receives hundreds of thousands of divers every year.

It was the same story across the whole northern wrecks and reefs itinerary. The Carnatic at the stern, dressed in sea fans and soft corals with glassfish between the rafters. Jackson Reef's wall, stacked with table corals and branching Acropora from the shallows to depth. Even Sha'ab El Erg, where the bottle nosed dolphins run circles around divers, had a reef that looked nothing like it should given the foot traffic it absorbs. It is among the best hard coral reefs you could find anywhere on earth.

So what is going on? Why is the Red Sea — one of the most heavily dived bodies of water on the planet, sitting in a region experiencing faster-than-average warming, flanked by some of the world's most geopolitically turbulent coastlines — still producing reef experiences that make you fall in love with diving all over again?

The answer, it turns out, is a collision of deep evolutionary history, extraordinary local oceanography, surprisingly effective conservation policy, and a degree of luck that the Red Sea's corals have absolutely earned.

The Thermal Gauntlet

To understand why Red Sea corals are so resilient, you have to go back roughly 7,000 years and picture a very bad commute.

The Red Sea connects to the Indian Ocean through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait in the south — a narrow, shallow bottleneck where, during certain periods of Earth's climate history, sea surface temperatures climbed above 32°C (90°F). For coral to colonise the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean, it had to pass through that thermal barrier. The corals that couldn't handle the heat didn't make it. The ones that did were, by definition, the hardiest.

This is what scientists now call the "evolutionary memory" of Red Sea corals. It's not just heat tolerance in a general sense — it's a hard-selected, genetically embedded capacity to function at temperatures that would bleach Australian reef systems within weeks. Research from KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) has shown that corals from the northern Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba can withstand warming of up to 7°C (12.6°F) above their normal summer maximum before triggering a bleaching response. The Great Barrier Reef, for reference, starts bleaching at around 1°C (1.8°F) above baseline. Seven degrees C. That's not a marginal advantage. That's a completely different biological category.

Read more…

In each issue of our newsletter, we will curate some top dive news from around the world. Links to each of the original articles are available.

Macro or Portrait? How to Choose the Right Underwater Photography Competition Category

It comes up every year, without fail. Someone I know goes to Lembeh and comes back with an image they are proud of — shot on their favorite macro lens, a close encounter with a small, expressive animal, beautifully lit and perfectly sharp — but they genuinely do not know which category to enter it in. Is it macro? Is it portrait? Does the distinction actually matter?

It does matter. And the confusion is entirely understandable, because the line between these two categories is not always where photographers expect it to be. Getting it right can be the difference between an image being judged by the right panel against the right work, or being quietly overlooked because it does not quite fit what the judges in that category are looking for.

How UPY Defines These Categories

The Underwater Photographer of the Year competition is widely regarded as the most prestigious underwater photography competition in the world, and the way it defines its categories is worth understanding carefully — because the definitions are more precise than they might first appear.

UPY defines Macro simply and specifically: close-up and macro images shot anywhere in the world. The category is defined by technique and scale. If you used macro or close-up technique to produce the image, this is where it belongs.

Portrait is defined as: images depicting a sense of character of the chosen subject. The category can span from wide to close-up to macro — meaning the physical distance to the subject or the focal length used is not the determining factor. What matters is whether the image conveys something about the animal as an individual, something that makes the viewer feel they are meeting a character rather than examining a specimen.

Macro tells you how the image was made. Portrait tells you what the image is trying to do.

That distinction is the foundation of everything. Macro is a technical category. Portrait is an intentional one. Both can use the same gear, the same lens, the same approach — and still produce images that belong in completely different categories.

Read more…

When Photo Competitions Go Bad

By Alex Mustard and Matthew Sullivan

This piece is drawn from a recent episode of The Underwater Photography Show, where we tackled a subject we don't usually dwell on — the darker side of photo competitions. We both love entering contests, debating contests and talking about them on the show, but a couple of things caught our attention recently that reminded us that we must talk about the negatives too: the ethical issues they can raise, the shocking behaviour they sometimes elicite, and the rights-grab pitfalls that can catch photographers off guard.

The Faked Eagle

The first case that came recently was from a YouTube video by topside wildlife photographer Dwayne Patton, who was judging a wildlife photography competition when something about one of the entries didn't sit right with him. The image was of an eagle coming in to land on a tree stump — a beautiful shot with the wings outstretched and a clean background. It was nicely done, and I (Alex) admit that I probably wouldn't have spotted the issue at a glance. But something nagged at Dwayne and he went back to the organisers to flag his concern.

The first alarm bell came when the photographer claimed a computer crash meant he no longer had the raw file and could only provide a DNG — the modern version of the dog ate my homework excuse. That response heightened suspicions, and after an image search online, they found that the eagle in the image had been lifted from a completely different photograph by a completely different photographer — flipped and composited onto the stump. The photographer had apparently gone out and shot a stump to use as a background, then placed someone else's eagle on top of it. What’s striking is how much detective work it took to catch it, which suggests people do get away with it.

The other lesson is that rarely do people caught in these situations back down. In my experience, they almost always double down. I recall an early Wetpixel competition — now known as the DPG Masters — where a photographer submitted a faked raw file. It had the right file extension, but the resolution and aspect ratio were impossible for the camera in question. Even when confronted, the doubling down continued.

My theory on why people do this: they probably start by thinking the image won't go far, that it might just pick up a minor placing and no one will look too closely. Then, if it starts doing well, they find themselves in too deep and keep pushing the lie further. The smarter move, if you ever find yourself in that situation without really intending to be, is to withdraw — you could even say you can't locate the raw file. This would at least, preserve your reputation and teach you a lesson.

Read more…

This week we have another great video from Joseph Ricketts. This time he’s on the hunt to photograph minnows spawning in a mountain stream in Appalachia. Check it out.

Summary

That's a wrap on Issue #63 — we hope there's something in there that's got you thinking, whether it's about the science beneath the surface or the strategy behind your next competition entry. If you've enjoyed this issue, please share it with a fellow diver who'd love it. Until next time, happy bubbles!

Andy & Byron