The Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition Has Announced Its Winners! Behind-the-Lens Stories Revealed

What does the secret garden in your heart look like? In northern Taiwan, there is a "secret garden" beloved by divers — the Wanghaixiang Chaoching Bay Marine Conservation Area in Keelung. To document the rich marine ecosystem of Chaoching Bay and promote marine conservation, the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology organized the "2022 Image Bay Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition," receiving 634 entries. Come dive into Chaoching with these masters of underwater photography and explore the secret garden!

The Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition: Photographers Become Marine Citizen Scientists

The Wanghaixiang Chaoching Bay Marine Conservation Area in Keelung was established in 2016. In recent years, the number of divers has grown and the underwater ecosystem has visibly flourished. Because documenting marine ecosystems requires an underwater camera — far less straightforward than shooting on land — collecting and accumulating data is considerably more difficult. The competition was therefore organized to gather authentic records of the marine ecosystem and environment.

The competition was divided into a wide-angle category and a macro category, with a newly added "Special Animal Behavior Award." We also invited the photographers to share the behind-the-scenes stories of their winning shots!

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Wide-Angle Category

Chaoching's iconic soft coral and tube sponges, together with glassfish scattered like stars across the reef top of the secret garden, and a friendly Grouper that swam into the frame and glanced straight at the lens. Photographer 詹品杰 named the shot "Dream · Realm" because catching that single moment brought together all of Chaoching's underwater hallmarks — "it's just like Chaoching in a dream."

Behind the Lens of "Dream · Realm" — Wide-Angle Category

詹品杰 recalls that around August this year, large numbers of glassfish visited the secret garden at depths of roughly 10–20 m and stayed for three to four weeks. "We went out to shoot almost every morning — about four or five days a week. Up at 5 a.m., arrive at 6, and in the water by 7."

To capture light and shadow against a flat seascape, early-morning dives were essential. The bigger challenge was whether the moving school of fish would cooperate with the ideal composition. "Coming every morning, I might take hundreds or even thousands of shots before finally getting a few frames where the fish were moving in the direction and position I wanted." 詹品杰 also noted that because fishing has long been prohibited in Chaoching, the Grouper in the photo has no fear of humans — which is why it could be photographed at such close range.

詹品杰 shares that wide-angle shooting requires a thorough familiarity with the underwater terrain, as well as close attention to the tides when choosing the right time to shoot. The entire seabed is like an underwater photography studio; even out of the water, he is mentally composing shots. Having dived Chaoching frequently over the past two or three years, he has the underwater environment almost entirely mapped in his mind. (You might also enjoy: From keeping a marine tank to diving straight into the open sea!)

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Wide-Angle Category: Full List of Winners and Works

• 1st Place — 詹品杰 — Dream · Realm
• 2nd Place — 李衍毅 — Flowers in Full Bloom
• 3rd Place — 陳軍豪 — The Flow of Life
• Honorable Mention — 李衍毅 — At Ease
• Honorable Mention — 簡晨宇 — Survival of the Fittest
• Honorable Mention — 詹品杰 — Fish · Tide

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Macro Category

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Macro Category First Place: Whip Coral Shrimp

A spiraling sea whip fills the frame with dimension and depth, while a commensal shrimp perches upon it in near-perfect camouflage. Photographer 徐志亮 explains: "Having it resting there makes it an ideal subject for nature photography — a unique creature together with its habitat and its commensal partner."

Behind the Lens of "Whip Coral Shrimp" — Macro Category

The sea whip is about as thick as a finger, yet its spiral spans roughly the length of an arm. Can you guess how large the shrimp on top of it is?

The answer: only about 1 cm in body length! "Even though the whip coral shrimp occupies just a small corner of the frame, the focus is locked onto its eye — bringing out the eye itself and the detail of its compound facets." The shot goes beyond capturing biological detail; to convey the shrimp's "gaze" and surface texture, 徐志亮 employed a photographic technique using a single strobe paired with a snoot to create shadows and a stronger 3D effect, highlighting the rarely seen spiral form of the sea whip.

The photo was taken on a sloping, near-vertical wall within Chaoching's secret garden. "It's harder to shoot on a wall — difficult to stay stable, and there's almost nowhere to place your feet." 徐志亮 explains that macro photography demands an almost completely motionless camera, while the sea whip sways with the current, adding uncertainty to focus. Extra care was also required not to accidentally touch the sea whip, as any contact would cause it to retract its polyps and lose all its delicate texture. (You might also enjoy: With over ten years of underwater photography experience, how does 徐志亮 "interact with them"?)

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Macro Category: Full List of Winners and Works

• 1st Place — 徐志亮 — Whip Coral Shrimp
• 2nd Place — 葉宏文 — Leopard Shrimp
• 2nd Place — 曾沂羚 — twinkle stars
• Honorable Mention — 徐志亮 — Leopard Shrimp
• Honorable Mention — 雷鈞合 — Red and White
• Honorable Mention — 徐志亮 — Juvenile Valentinni's Sharpnose Pufferfish

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Special Animal Behavior Award

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Special Animal Behavior Award: "Caught You! You're the Culprit!"

A sponge crab covered in sand, its chelae tipped in white, carries a gorgonian / sea fan on its back. Photographer 簡晨宇 added the caption: "What damages coral may not have a single answer — perhaps it is something we have never seen before."

Behind the Lens of "Caught You! You're the Culprit!" — Special Animal Behavior Award

This past summer, a large gorgonian / sea fan in Chaoching was damaged and broken, causing great distress among many divers. The instinct was to suspect human activity — and of course, anyone undertaking underwater activities should take great care to protect the environment. But could there be another culprit responsible for damaging the coral?

Photographer 簡晨宇, who is also a local dive instructor in Chaoching, applied for a night dive permit to assist with research and investigation, and unexpectedly discovered the unusual behavior of a sponge crab using coral as camouflage. "The first time I saw it, there was a sponge roughly 45 cm wide moving on its own, and half of it had fallen off. I thought, 'That can't be right — there's nobody around, and it's not Ghost Festival…'" He didn't take a photo at that moment, but after surfacing and discussing the sighting with researchers and academics, he learned that it was a sponge crab carrying a barrel sponge as a hiding place.

More than a year later, 簡晨宇 came across the remarkable sight again — this time a sponge crab moving with a gorgonian / sea fan on its back. The coincidence with the recent sea fan damage in Chaoching sparked his imagination. Although he gave the photograph a humorous title, he is not pointing the finger at the sponge crab as the definitive culprit. Rather, "when we understand the behavior of various creatures, we realize that any event can have many possible causes — and that is exactly why investigation and research matter so much." (You might also enjoy: Can underwater photography really contribute to research?)

Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition – Special Animal Behavior Award: Full List of Winners and Works

• Special Animal Behavior Award — 葉宏文 — A Fatherly Ostorhinchus ocellatus
• Special Animal Behavior Award — 簡晨宇 — Caught! You're the Culprit!

Originally scheduled for last year, the Image Bay Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition was postponed due to the pandemic and held this year instead — which, as it turned out, coincided with an unusually long period of clear water in Chaoching, giving rise to many outstanding entries and making the judges' job no easy task!

Judge 京太郎: "Every judge worked hard, scrutinizing details with a magnifying glass. A great underwater nature photograph does not come easily — it demands enormous amounts of energy, physical effort, and financial investment, plus a touch of luck."

Thank you to everyone who participated so enthusiastically and helped bring the competition to a successful close. These photographs continue to contribute invaluable data to the marine citizen science database. We hope to encourage more dive photographers to become marine citizen scientists — and ultimately to reach a point where "everyone is a conservation officer." If you too want to become a dive photographer and marine citizen scientist, we welcome you to read BlueTrend's featured articles!

How to Photograph Marine Life for Identification Purposes

Further reading:

• 2022 Image Bay Chaoching Underwater Photography Competition
• National Museum of Marine Science and Technology
• Marine Citizen Scientists Using Underwater Photography to Support Marine Conservation and Fundamental Research