Winners of 2012 Underwater Photo Amateur Contest

Dibawah ini adalah foto-foto pemenang lomba foto bawah air amatir 2012 yang diselenggarakan oleh National Geographic.

Overall Winner

A headshield sea slug pauses on a blade of grass in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the winning image of the University of Miami's 2012 amateur Underwater Photography Contest, whose results were announced this month. Everybody looked at this photo and said, Wow ... Everything is just so appealing to the eye. The Judges impressed by how sharply photographer Ximena Olds captured the tiny creature, which is less than an inch (2.5 centimeters) long. One of the great things about a contest like this is that it gets people seeing the ocean through other eyes. A really good photographer, like a painter or sculptor, doesn't just make a snapshot of something—but they capture something about the environment that strikes them.

Macro Photography

First Place

Two yellownose gobies peek out of a brain coral off the Caribbean island of Bonaire in a macro, or close-up, picture.

Second Place

Perhaps only a half inch (1.3 centimeters) long, a porcelain crab perches on a feathery sea pen in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. The color palette is almost monochromatic ... that was beautiful.

Third Place

Emperor shrimp hitchhike on the back of a sea cucumber in Ambon, Indonesia. The tiny shrimp—each eye is only a millimeter wide—use the sea cucumbers as dining cars, eating whatever passes by. The picture captures that environment—they're riding on top of the train.

Marine Life Portrait

First Place

Pictures of whales in the open ocean.This image captured near the Caribbean island of Dominica, you see the dappled sunlight on the whale's nose—the whole feeling of that photo conveys just an incredibly dramatic scene.

Second Place

An Eschmeyer's scorpionfish stares down the camera in Bali, Indonesia. The remarkable and very rare fish has some clever adaptations to blend into its environment. In addition to its camouflaging colors, the fish has transparent spots in its pectoral fins. The "windows" help break up its outline, making it easier to sneak up on prey. Lastly, the fish's false eyes (the two white dots) might also help trick prey.

Third Place

Nudibranchs—such as this Cratena peregrina caught on camera off Greece—are roughly finger-size sea slugs whose 3,000-odd species thrive in seas cold and warm, shallow and deep. Whereas their ancient ancestors slipped across the seafloor in defensive shells, these gastropods come armed with toxic secretions and stinging cells.

Wide-Angle

First Place

Lionfish swim among smaller fish in Israel's Red Sea. What they'll often do is use their pectoral fins like fans and gently herd a school of little fish in front of them ... and then inhale them once the fish is in front of their mouth. This "beautiful" fish has spread beyond its native environment, however, and is now a threat to other fish species in the Caribbean.

Second Place

Schools of fish flash among red mangrove in the Bahamian island of South Bimini. Mangroves serve as vital, intermediate nurseries as coral reef fish journey from their "cribs" in seagrass beds to the large coral reef ecosystems where the fish spend their adulthoods.

Third Place

Orange anthias fish swim amid soft corals in the Fiji Islands. Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor but support about 25 percent of all marine creatures, according to the Coral Reef Alliance.

Student Photography

First Place

A whale shark feeds at the surface near Isla Mujeres, Mexico. The ocean's biggest fish—reaching lengths of up to 40 feet (12 meters)—whale sharks usually stick to themselves as they cruise tropical waters looking for plankton and other small prey. But in 2009 aerial and surface surveys spotted a swarm of at least 420 of the sharks rubbing fins as they gorged on fish eggs.

Second Place

Harlequin shrimp—such as the one in this winning picture taken in Thailand's Similan Islands—mate for life, and the pairs work together to capture and kill their favorite prey: starfish. One of the shrimp locates a starfish, flips it over, and drags the prey into the shrimp's lair. The couple then devours the starfish's internal organs, starting from the tips of its arms down to its central disk—keeping their victim alive for as long as possible.

Third Place

A young tiger shark (top) and lemon shark hover near the sea bottom in the Bahamas. A widespread species, the tiger shark is comfortable in both the open ocean as well as shallow coastal waters, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History. The less wide-ranging lemon shark inhabits subtropical, shallow waters among coral reefs, mangroves, enclosed bays, sounds, and river mouths.

Fan Favorite

Backlighted by the rising sun, a sea nettle jellyfish pulses across California's Monterey Bay in the Rosenstiel School contest's first "fan favorite" picture, chosen via online poll. Its trailing appendages covered in stinging cells, a sea nettle typically transfers captured prey from the jelly's slender tentacles to its ruffled mouth-arms to its mouth, hidden inside the sea nettle's bell.





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