HIGHLY COMMENDED CATEGORY BLACK AND WHITE
Risto Raunio | Swimming underwater

Name: Risto Raunio
Picture title: Swimming underwater
Category: Black and White
Nationality: Finland
Occupation: I am a freelance photographer and I have been retired for a few years. My last occupation was Director of Finance in our family company in Finland.

Technical information
Camera: Sony A1
Lens: FE 400 F2,8 GM OSS + 1,4 x teleconverter = 560 mm
EXIF: 1/3200, f5,6 ISO 1600

Risto Raunio​ says:

I am keen on penguins, and my dream is to have pictures of all (17-18) penguin species in the world. On January 2023 I was on the journey heading to Antarctica. We started our trip from New Zealand and on the way heading to the Ross Sea, I was lucky to see six different penguin species on a few islands of the Subantarctic area.

Sailing carefully through drift ice in the middle of Ross Sea, I noticed that a few Adelie penguins were swimming in the sea behind and on both sides of our ship. They either swam in the water or run on the ice floes, which was funny, but also amazing to see. The left side of the ship was luckily in shadow where it was possible to see underwater without a polarized filter. On the deck of our ship, I followed a penguin that swam occasionally just a little bit underwater. This wonderful show lasted only two or three minutes, but I was lucky to have many pictures of this lovely bird and of this rare photo situation. Converting this picture from the original RAW to jpg format I was sure the black and white version looked much better than the same picture in colors.