What?

The Underwater Photo Marathon is an online based competition. The participants of the annual competition need to send their photos in a given time period to the organizer. After the time window expires a jury of experts elects the winners.

Who?

Submissions are accepted from photographers worldwide, as long as they're taken with a digital camera. All are welcome to enter the competition, amateurs and professionals alike.

How?

The photos have to be submitted through the official www.uwphotomarathon.com website. The results will be posted on the same website upon jury's decision. The award ceremony will follow at the Underwater Photo Marathon exhibition opening, and the best photos will also be displayed virtually.

Why?

Because we are a young and enthusiastic team from the diving club "Roniti se mora", focused on the goal to improve the cultural offerings of the city of Zagreb, by providing a different perspective on photography. And why a marathon? Our ultimate goal is to display the best photos year round on an exhibition in various institutions in Zagreb as well as country wide, until the next competition which marks the beginning of a new cycle. That way the concept of underwater photography becomes available to a number of people of different backgrounds, which allows for it to continuously promote itself.

UWPM 2020

Competition is now CLOSED!

Competition Rules

UWPM 2020 Pravilnik HR

UWPM 2020 Rulebook EN

Photo Judges

Wolfgang Poelzer

Wolfgang Poelzer, a well known Austrian photographer was born in 1969 in Hallein, Austria. Among many international awards, the ones he is most proud of are the 1998 and 2002 CMAS Underwater Photography World Championship gold medals in macro and wide angle categories, and 2000 Antibes Festival gold medal in black & white category. Since then he become a professional photographer, and today he works as a freelance journalist and photographer.

Francesco Pacienza

Francesco Pacienza graduated from the prestigious European Institute of Design with a specialization in fashion photography and jewelry photography; he studied with the Director of photography, winner of 4 Oscar awards, Vittorio Storaro; and continues to teach photography through various means. Yet part of the beauty of his images cannot be memorized, studied or reproduced: they are pure magic.
He uses both his photographic skills and his fertile imagination to create an alternative universe
through photography, whether it is an image of a seahorse or a model or a natural landscape.

Imran Ahmad

Imran graduated from Middlesex University with a Bachelor of Arts in Film making. He is an ambassador for BLANCPAIN, MARES, NIKON, SEACAM, RGBlue Lights (Japan), and a member of the Ocean Artist Society. He spends much of his time as a professional photographer giving presentations, promoting photography in all its aspect, both as an art and documentation.

He currently runs photo workshops on conservation, underwater, travel, commercial and runs photo dive trips around the world.

When not photographing underwater, Imran can be found at his photographic showroom located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ESCAPEINC ASIA Showroom is a one stop showroom for all your professional photography need in Asia.

Franco Banfi

Franco started an underwater photographer carrier 35 years ago and in 2000 left his job to become a professional photographer, specialized in underwater and wildlife images. Recently he founded a company skilled in running trips for micro-groups of enthusiasts, travelling for enjoying wildlife above and under the surface. Franco is an award-winning photographer (World Champion in underwater photography in Cuba) and he regularly get top honours of the more prestigious international photo-competitions as Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY), Nature’s Best, International Photography Awards (IPA), etc.

Milan Tomažin

Milan Tomažin Tyson is an experienced Slovenian underwater photographer born in 1968 in Kranj. He joined the ranks of Slovenian underwater photographers in the late nineties. As a special force police officer, he started achieving extremely good results with his Nikonos RS.

Since than his work has been published in many books and magazines, and he exhibited at more than 16 exhibitions worldwide. Some of his greatest achievements in underwater photography were Audience award at the 7th World Championship in Underwater Photography in Norway and second place in Singapore at the CMAS “50 Judges” UW Photography Contest.

Goran Butajla

He is the editor and chief of the Croatian ScubaLife magazine, and an underwater photographer from Zagreb. Underwater photography has been his passion throughout his entire diving career. He has been diving for almost 30 years and is in diving business for over 15 years, both as an instructor trainer and as a diving center owner in Croatia. He have travelled the world and visited most of the top diving destination, and for him the best diving spot in the world is Jardines de la Reina in Cuba.

Damir Zurub

Damir was born in 1976 in Zagreb. In May 2015 he won the title of 15th CMAS World Champion in Underwater Photography. Damir emerged as the best all-round photographer, winning gold, silver and bronze medals in the categories closeup, closeup with theme and wide angle with model. He is an SSI diving instructor, the president of “Roniti se mora” diving club, and he also established the Underwater Photo Marathon in 2013, and has been its chief organizer and director ever since.

Video Judges

Nuno Sá

Nuno Sá was the first Portuguese wildlife photographer awarded in some of the worlds major nature photography competitions, and is the author of six books and several dozens of articles published on National and International magazines, such as National Geographic Portugal. Nuno Sá has cooperated as producer, director of photography or cameraman with several National and International TV channels such as BBC, National Geographic channel, Discovery channel UK, Japanese channel NHK, Austrian ORF/Universum and many others. Nuno Sá was part of the team of main cinematographers of Blue Planet 2 episodes 1 (One Ocean) and 4 (Big Blue), shooting in the Azores and Norway. He is presently producing Portugal´s first major production about the sealife of Portugal.

Pedro Vasconcelos

Pedro Augusto Vasconcelos was born on the island of Madeira on the 10th of March 1977, always in contact with the sea since birth. He started underwater photography competition in 2007 and was vice-champion several times and had participated in 2 World Championships of Underwater Photography. He is responsible for the Underwater commission of photography in the Portuguese Federation. His passion is to capture all of life with his camera, both through photo and video, and to share it with others.