HIGHLY COMMENDED CATEGORY UNDERWATER
Mayumi Takeuchi-Ebbins | The Marriage of Moon jellyfish

Name: Mayumi Takeuchi-Ebbins
Picture title: The Marriage of Moon jellyfish
Category: Underwater
Nationality: Original  Japanese/Current in UK
Occupation: Full-time Underwater Photographer

Technical information
Camera: Nikon D5
Lens: Sigma F15mm Fisheye
EXIF:  ISO 1000,f10, 1/60s
Accessories: Nauticam Housing, INON Z330 Strobes x 2

Mayumi Takeuchi-Ebbins says:

This image is a huge crowd of Moon jellyfish. The female jellyfish will change her body color to pink or purple when she is ready for spawning eggs but not so many females there compared to male jellyfish. This moment is exactly when lots of male jellyfish are chasing only one pink bride in the crowd. I took this image from Prince William Sound in Alaska in June 2022. It was terribly heavy raining for a week while I was staying in Alaska and I couldn’t go out to the ocean for 4 days and I stuck in the town for a few days. On my last day, we decided to find the blossom of Moon jellyfish by 2 dives. I know there are some pink or purple female jellyfish there during summer in Alaska and I spent whole diving to find it. The first dive failed to find it and I could find only one pink bride in the crowd below 30 metres from the second dive. It was not easy to spot a pink bride out of a thousand male jellyfish and I was so lucky to find it. There was no sunlight by heavy rain and all jellyfish were trying to move down to deep water and I had only 5 minutes chance to shoot this moment. It was an incredible moment to see this behavior that all male jellyfish are chasing the pink female and surrounding her. I never forget this beautiful moment in my heart.