A short film shot in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, has won Best of Show at the third annual Underwater Awards Australasia. 'Dragon', by Australian filmmaker Kat dos Remedios, first took the Reels Showcase category before being named overall winner at a ceremony held at the Go Diving Show ANZ in Sydney on 5 September.

The film came out of a near-daily shooting ritual along the bay's shoreline during the 2025 breeding season, filmed on scuba with Nikon Z8 and Z9 bodies in Nauticam housings. The stakes felt personal: weedy seadragon populations elsewhere along the Great Southern Reef have been hit hard by a toxic algal bloom, and the filmmakers' patience paid off with the emotional core of the piece — newly hatched seadragons filmed in the wild.

They weren't the only winners celebrating seadragons. Talia Greis took the Sydney category with 'Dragon Clinger', a macro shot from Kurnell showing a clingfish hitching a ride on a seadragon's back — and, on closer look, a parasite riding on the clingfish. Jake Wilton won the Australian category with bottlenose dolphins herding parrotfish in coordinated fashion at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia.

The rest of the winning line-up spans the region and beyond. Simone Caprodossi captured up to six whale sharks jostling under boat lights at night in Djibouti's Gulf of Tadjoura for the International Waters win, while Annika Dahlberg's Conservation category image documented the dramatic rescue of a young humpback entangled in rope off Niue. Giacomo Marchione's plankton blackwater portfolio from Anilao in the Philippines won the Portfolio award, Qian Kun took the Tough TG category with a clownfish shot in Romblon, Germany's Enrico Somogyi proved smartphones belong underwater with a camouflaged Halimeda ghost pipefish shot on a vivo X200 Pro in Bali, and Tom Healy won the Only Water category with a sunrise wave on the New South Wales South Coast.

In total, hundreds of photos and films were entered across nine categories, with prizes worth close to A$70,000 including dive trips and camera gear. A panel of five underwater photographers — Tobias Friedrich, Matty Smith, Scott Portelli, Jayne Jenkins and Ross Long — judged the entries, with ocean photographer Ray Collins on board as a special category judge.

There's a conservation angle beyond the imagery. Finalist images were sold as metal prints at the Go Diving Show, with half the proceeds going to the Australian Marine Conservation Society and Take 3 For The Sea. The category winners will feature in the AMCS's 2028 calendar, and entry fees from the Conservation category were donated to both environmental partners. The full list of winners, runners-up and honourable mentions is on UnderwaterAwards.com.

For divers and underwater photographers, the results double as a shot list: Port Phillip Bay's seadragons, Kurnell's critters, Ningaloo's big-animal action and NSW's South Coast surf breaks are all producing award-worthy encounters. And if you're still shooting on a phone, Somogyi's ghost pipefish is the nudge you needed.

Original coverage: Dive Magazine