The annual British Underwater Photography Championship 2011 was held on Saturday 9th July at Mount Batten, Plymouth.
A total of 53 underwater photographers registered on Friday evening at the Hotel Mount Batten to participate. Each had from midnight until 6.30 p.m. on Saturday to take underwater photographs in the Plymouth area in four categories - Marine Life, Mankind in the Sea, Abstract and Humorous.
A few competitors failed to submit images for judging due in no small way to the poor visibility experienced or a technical fault with their camera system, but the majorty between them subbmitted over 100 images for the judging.
In all but the Humorous category, the images were judged by a panel comprising Alex Mustard (one of the world's foremost underwater photographers and a member of the BSoUP Committee as well as Associate Editor of Wetpixel), Peter Rowlands (Editor of the FREE online magazine UwP) and Neil Hope (Picture Editor of the Western Morning News, Plymouth, and a regular contributer to diving publication).
Following a buffet, served in the Hotel Mount Batten, the competitors, judges and supporters moved to the nearby Mount Batten Centre for the slide show and presentation of awards and trophies.
To kick off the show the audience present were invited to judge the Humorous category and then all of the submitted images in the three Main Categories were projected anonymously by category. The winning shot was taken by Annette Millar. Annette won the AP Valve Trophy, a Buddy BC plus Mark Caney's book Dolphin Way.
After a 25 minute break Alex Mustard, as chair of the panel of judges, explained the methodology used to select the winning images.
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