The Ocean Art 2023 Competition

It was an image of a monkey underwater that won the top prize at The Underwater Photography Guide Ocean Art 2023 competition. Photographers competed 14 different categories, ranging from Portrait and Marine Life Behavior to Underwater Conservation and Black & White. There was even a category dedicated solely to nudibranchs.

The winning photographer was Kuwait's Suliman Alatiqi for his portrait of a crab-eating macaque swimming through the ocean near the Phi Phi Islands, Thailand.

The macaques have adapted very well to living around the sea and will venture into the water to play, scavenge, or just cool down. Highly efficient swimmers, they can dive for up to half a minute and can cover short distances faster than most humans. This photo offers a rare glimpse of the swimming movement of a male macaque.

The first place for a blackwater shot of a squid hunting was won by Keigo Kawamura of Japan.

A total of $120,000 in prize money was awarded to this year's winners, while many other photographers won prizes gifted by top scuba diving resorts, liveaboard dive yachts, and underwater photo gear manufacturers.

You can see the other winners' results and interviews with them at http://tinyurl.com/2deaza67