News

Sharks and Divers – Gold and “Best of Show” – Ron Watkins (USA)
 

DPG and the organizers of SharkCon are thrilled to announce the winners of the DPG-SharkCon Photo Competition! The “Best of Show”—which won Gold in the “Sharks and Divers” category—was awarded to American photographer Ron Watkins for his awesome image of a great white observing divers in a cage off Guadalupe Island, Mexico.

Impressively, Canadian photographer Shane Gross shot both Gold in the “Shark Behavior” category and Gold in the “Shark Portraits” category. The former is an amazing capture of a male nurse shark biting a female’s pectoral fin and pinning her to the bottom in a rough display of “shark love.” The latter is a beautifully composed over-under of a juvenile lemon shark among the mangroves. Both were photographed in Eleuthera in the Bahamas.

The other winners were, in the “Sharks and Divers” category, Martin Steinmeier (Silver) and Chelle Blais (Bronze); in the “Shark Behavior” category, Adam Martin (Silver) and Sirachai Arunrugstichai (Bronze); and in the “Shark Portraits” category, Andy Schmid (Silver) and Marie-Charlotte Ropert (Bronze).

The winners were picked during a live judging event at SharkCon 2019 in Florida on July 13th, with the judging panel consisting of well-known shark shooters Daniel Norwood, Tanya Houppermans and Jim Abernethy. For each category, 10 finalists were in contention, chosen by DPG’s editors from a pool of almost 500 entries.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone who made the competition possible, including our generous sponsors, our esteemed panel of judges, and all the photographers who entered the contest.
 

PRIZES
 

• Ron Watkins (Best of Show): 5 days of great white shark diving at Guadalupe Island, Mexico aboard the new Socorro Vortex luxury liveaboard

• Shane Gross (Gold): 5 days of diving with Sam’s Tours with a 7-night stay at Palau Royal Resort in Palau

• Shane Gross (Gold): 3 days of diving in North Carolina, USA with Olympus Dive Center

• Martin Steinmeier (Silver): 2 days of diving in the Bahamas with Neal Watson’s Bimini Scuba Center

• Adam Martin (Silver): $500 voucher towards an Epic Diving Bahamas shark dive

• Andy Schmid (Silver): a shark dive with the Florida Aquarium

• Chelle Blais (Bronze): Isotta camera bag and dry bag

• Sirachai Arunrugstichai (Bronze): Prawno Apparel $100 gift card

• Marie-Charlotte Ropert (Bronze): CineBags Square Grouper bag

SPONSORS
 

Sharks and Divers – Silver – Martin Steinmeier (Germany)
 

Sharks and Divers – Bronze – Chelle Blais (Canada)
 

Shark Behavior – Gold – Shane Gross (Canada)
 

Shark Behavior – Silver – Adam Martin (USA)
 

Shark Behavior – Bronze – Sirachai Arunrugstichai (Thailand)
 

Shark Portraits – Gold – Shane Gross (Canada)
 

Shark Portraits – Silver – Andy Schmid (Switzerland)
 

Shark Portraits – Bronze – Marie-Charlotte Ropert (France)