DivePhotoGuide and
Wetpixel have announced the winners of the 5th annual
Our World Underwater international underwater photography and video competition. The competition was held in association with
Our World Underwater and is part of a joint series often referred to as the "Super Bowl" of international underwater imagery events, with world-class prizes, esteemed celebrity judges, and significant global media support.

Thousands of entries were received from dozens of countries and the winners represented fourteen countries. The quality level of the images submitted was very high, and the bar is continually being set higher each year. A formal statement from the judges can be found
Here.
The winners were presented during the film festival at a special 40th anniversary
Our World Underwater show in Chicago.
Photographers and videographers competed in seven still-image categories and two video categories, to win nearly $50,000 in prizes including premium dive trips, underwater photography and video and diving equipment and more. Dive packages to some of the top photo destinations in the world included the Sea of Cortez, Wakatobi-Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Red Sea, Grand Cayman, the Solomon Islands, Vietnam, and Norway. Other prizes included underwater strobes, focus lights, and Cressi dive equipment.

Esteemed judges included leading professional underwater photographers, cinematographers and magazine editors. Eric Cheng, David Doubilet, Ric Frazier, Alex Mustard, and Berkley White comprised the judging panel for still categories and Steve Douglas, Eric Hanauer, and Mary Lynn Price for video categories.
Winning images are published by supporting media partners worldwide, and
Divefilm.com will be podcasting the winning videos as episodes of the iTunes-featured DiveFilm Podcast Video and DiveFilm High Definition Podcast Video.
As with all
Wetpixel and
DivePhotoGuide competitions, 15% of proceeds will be donated to marine conservation efforts.
Congratulations to all winners! I would have added "lucky", but the truth is that luck has nothing to do with what you're about to see below...
For high res winning images,
Click Here.