Coral Expeditions Partnership with the Australian Geographic Society

2021 – Leafy night – Scott Portelli – Overall Winner Animal Portrait

Leafy Seadragons hide in the thick kelp to camouflage themselves to avoid predators. The vibrant flamboyant adults blend perfectly with their surroundings. At night the backlighting on a Leafy seadragon accentuates their features and the delicate bodies that appear translucent.

Image taken in Second Valley, South Australia

2022 – Nature’s Prey – Ashlee Jensen – Overall Winner Animals in Nature

A humpback whale carcass found on the ocean floor, stripped clean of its flesh by surrounding sharks. This sub-adult whale died while making the annual migration north along the Ningaloo Reef. A harsh act of Mother Nature, but an important part of the natural ecosystem.

Judges Comments: “The beauty of the image lies in its artful circular composition, seen in the curves of the whale’s skeletal ribs mirroring the patterns in the sand, keeping our eye within the frame moving between the living and the dead.”

Image taken in Coral Bay, Western Australia

2023 – My Country Burns – Samual Markham – Overall Winner Landscape

An image from the inside of a Pyro-cumulonimbus firestorm. Taken during the horrific 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires that devastated Australia.

Judges comments: “This is a breathtaking, scary photograph, full of energy and visual drama which, is indicative of the world we now live in. Despite the circumstances this is not a panicked shot; it is a studied composition with extraordinary detail. Many layers draw us into the scene, giving us a genuine feeling of being apart of the firestorm.”

Image taken in Parma Nature Reserve, New South Wales, Australia.

2024 – Bubble Net – Scott Portelli – Overall Winner Aerial

As part of an expedition down to Antarctica, I spent a month photographing the unique wildlife across this icy realm. Our vessel approached feeding humpbacks displaying bubble-net feeding. With snow falling and changing visibility, I captured the moment when two humpbacks emerged feeding through a collaborative bubble-net.

Judges Comments:” There is a sense of temporality to this photograph. The movement of the whales and their bubbles tell the story of a sequence of events; you can imagine what happened next. The photographer has used their drone to great effect, depicting the animal behaviour from above. There is poetry in this photograph, we love this one!”

Image taken in Antarctica under permit.