Underwater Awards Australasia 2026

Home > Rules & Guidelines

1. ABOUT THE COMPETITION
   1. The main objectives of the Underwater Awards Australasia (“the Competition”) are to enhance, exhibit, and promote the art of underwater and ocean photography and to to help raise public awareness about protecting marine and aquatic environments.
   2. The Competition is a joint project by Underwater Australasia, DivePhotoGuide and UW Images (“the Owners”).
   3. The entry and results publishing process is managed on DivePhotoGuide’s online platform, www.underwatercompetition.com.
   4. The Competition comprises a photography and video competition open to anyone. Entrants aged under 18 years require consent from their parent or guardian, who should receive all correspondence. Any contact with the Owners regarding the Competition (unless specified otherwise) should be via the email address: contact@divephotoguide.com.
   5. An independent panel of experts comprising a chair and judges (“the Jury”) will be appointed by the Owners to select and award the winners of the categories and the overall winner (“Best of Show”).
   6. Selected entries to the Competition may be displayed in an exhibition at the Go Diving Show ANZ in Sydney, Australia in September 2026 (“the Exhibition”), featured online, in publicity materials relating to the Competition and/or the Exhibition, or as merchandising according to the terms hereunder.
2. CONDITIONS OF ENTRY
   
   1. Entries must be received by July 19th, 2026 at 11.59PM AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time) UTC+10:00 (“the Closing Date”).
   2. The Competition is open to anyone except individuals (and their partners and family) involved in its organisation or judging or employees of the Owners or any official partners, supporters, or sponsors of the Competition. Entrants under 18 years of age at the Closing Date must have the permission of a parent or guardian.
   3. By entering the Competition, the entrant agrees to maintain the highest standards in all matters relating to the Competition and not to do or say anything that does or might damage the reputation of the Owners, the Competition, the other entrants, or the official partners, supporters, or sponsors of the Competition and/or the Exhibition. The entrant acknowledges that entry into the Competition does not grant any rights in any intellectual property rights of the Competition and/or the Owners, and agrees not to use any names, logos, or other intellectual property rights of any of them or to make any public statement regarding any of them without the prior written consent of the Owners.
   4. It is the responsibility of each entrant into the Competition to ensure that they have read and will abide by these Rules & Guidelines. By submitting an entry, each entrant agrees to the Rules & Guidelines, that their entry complies with the Rules & Guidelines, and that they will be liable to the Owners and their licensees in respect of any damages or losses incurred as a breach of the Rules & Guidelines by the entrant.
   5. Entrants must submit entries that are associated with the theme of underwater, ocean, river, lakes, or other natural bodies of water.
   6. Entrants are not permitted to submit entries that:
      1. have been awarded any prize, commendation, or another award in any major^* photo and/or video contest before April 1st, 2026;
      2. feature farm animals, family pets, and/or cultivated plants, aquarium or zoo exhibits;
      3. portray captive or restrained animals, animal models, and/or any other animal being exploited for profit unless for the purposes of reporting on a specific issue regarding the treatment of animals by a third party;
      4. have been captured using live bait;
      5. do not meet the photo and video specifications detailed in Section 5 and Section 6, respectively
   ^*The definition of a “major” contest is subjective and will be determined in a case-by-case approach by the Jury. As a guideline, if the entrant’s image or video has been widely publicized as a result of its placing, it is likely that this would be considered to be part of a “major” contest. Any single image that was part of a portfolio, but did not place as a single image, is eligible to be entered.
3. ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
   1. Entry must be via the online platform, www.underwatercompetition.com.
   2. A one-off non-refundable fee of USD10 per entry is payable by the entrant at the time of submission.
   3. Entrants may enter one or more entries in one category, or spread across any number of categories.
   4. The Competition consists of the Photo categories “Sydney,” “Conservation,” “Australian,” “International Waters,” “Tough TG,” “Portfolio,” “Smartphone/Action Cam,” and “Only Water”; and the Video category “Reels Showcase.”
   5. With the exception of the categories “Sydney,” “Australian,” and “International Waters,” entries must have been shot in the Australasian region. For the purposes of the competition, “Australasia” includes Australia, New Zealand, and the countries of Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Southeast Asia (see map).
   6. In the Photo categories, with the exception of the “Portfolio” category, an entry will consist of a single still image, without any insertion of comment or a frame. A single image may be submitted in multiple categories. Each submission equals one (1) entry, i.e., if the entrant wishes to submit the same image into three (3) categories, this would equal three (3) entries. Entries into the “Portfolio” category must comprise six (6) photos arranged in a single image. Any entries with more or fewer than six (6) images will be disqualified.
   7. Entries into the Photo categories must have been taken in, under or around water.
   8. Entry into the Video category “Reels Showcase” entails submitting basic information about your video into www.underwatercompetition.com and then using Instagram’s collaboration feature to share your work with the Competition Instagram page as an Instagram Reel.
   9. For entries in the Video category, at least 50% of the Reel must consist of underwater video clips.
4. ETHICS
   1. Any breach of the Competition’s ethics below will constitute a breach of the Rules & Guidelines.
   2. Entrants are required to report on the natural world in a way that is both creative and honest:
      1. Entries must not deceive the viewer or attempt to disguise and/or misrepresent the reality of nature.
      2. Entrants must not do anything to injure or distress an animal or damage its habitat in an attempt to secure an image or video clip. Entries suspected of exhibiting the following behavior will be disqualified:
         1. divers visibly damaging the environment (e.g., gear dragging or kicking up sand);
         2. animals displaying signs of stress (e.g., puffed puffers, inking octopuses);
         3. images in which the subject has been moved into a position or environment in which they are not normally found;
         4. marine life being touched (e.g., coral polyps, seahorse tails);
         5. divers exhibiting poor buoyancy control;
         6. images which have been captured in a manner that may cause distress or injury to the marine environment.
      3. Entrants—including those using drones—are responsible for ensuring full compliance with any applicable national or international legislation and for securing any relevant permits that may be required (which, in the case of human portraits and recordings, will include the subject’s permission) and which must be made available on request by the Owner.
      4. Feeding/baiting using live bait is not permitted. Any other feeding/baiting (e.g., chumming) must be declared in the caption for the Jury and Owners to review. Failure to disclose feeding/baiting in the caption may result in the photo being discarded, when the Jury has a high confidence feeding/baiting was involved.
      5. Caption information supplied must be complete, true, and accurate.
      6. If the Owners or Jury suspect that an entry has been achieved through unethical practices, the entry will be disqualified. The Owners reserve the right to report the entrant to the applicable authorities.
      7. If, in the process of judging, an entry is flagged for ethics review, the entrant will be contacted and asked to respond to any concerns raised by a required date. The entrant’s response will then be taken into consideration by the Owners and Jury when deciding if the Rules & Guidelines have been breached. Failure to respond to Jury questions in a timely manner might end up in entries being disqualified.
5. PHOTO ENTRY SPECIFICATIONS
   1. Photo submissions must be in digital format. Scans of negatives or slides are not accepted.
   2. For all Photo categories (except for the “Portfolio” category), digital files must be submitted as JPGs/JPEGs, saved at high or maximum quality setting; sRGB colour space; sized to be 2,000 pixels in the longest dimension. The maximum file size is 5MB (5,000KB).
   3. Entries in the “Portfolio” category must be a single JPG/JPEG image made up of six (6) photos laid out on a neutral grey (#666666) background sized to be 6,000 pixels in the longest dimension. The images can be different sizes and orientations and may be displayed according to the entrant’s preference. Only the images in the portfolio will be judged, not the layout. The maximum file size is 5MB (5,000KB).
   4. No borders, watermarks, names or signatures should be included in any submitted photo; otherwise, the entry must be disqualified.
   5. Upon upload, a unique and anonymous filename will be generated by the system for each entry.
   6. Any entry that cannot be authenticated or is not of acceptable quality will be disqualified. The Owners will ask entrants that make it to the final round of judging to provide the original RAW file.
   7. Digital adjustments such as the following are permitted: global adjustments to colour, tone and contrast; local adjustments to colour, tone and contrast (e.g., burning, dodging); cropping, sharpening, noise reduction, and minor cleaning work (e.g., removal of sensor dust, removal of chromatic aberration). High dynamic range (HDR) capture, stitched images (panoramas), and focus stacking are permitted provided that they comply with the Competition’s principles of authenticity so that they do not deceive the viewer or misrepresent the reality of nature. Minor removal of particles/backscatter (or water droplets on the dome in the case of split shots) is permitted but not to the extent that it alters the authenticity of the photo: No more than 30 “spots” (backscatter or droplets) may be removed.
   8. The following digital adjustments—but not limited to these—are not permitted: adding, moving, or removing objects, animals or parts of animals, plants, people, structures, etc; composite images comprising more than one original capture, including in-camera multiple exposures (even if they result in a single RAW file); sky replacements; digitally painted foregrounds or backgrounds; using editing tools powered by artificial intelligence, such as upscaling, de-noising, and sharpening. The use of generative AI to add content to an image or to replace parts of an image is strictly forbidden.
   9. EXIF data should be kept intact (e.g., camera, lens, exposure, etc).
   10. For split (half-and-half) images, more than 30% of the image must be underwater.
6. VIDEO ENTRY SPECIFICATIONS
   1. Entering the “Reels Showcase” category requires you to share your Reel using a public Instagram account.
   2. A Reel must be no more than 90 seconds in duration, and at least 50% of the Reel must consist of underwater video clips. Entrants should not include their name in the Reel.
   3. You are encouraged to be as creative as possible and use text, filters and audio to create a fun and entertaining multi-clip Reel.
   4. Submission is a simple four-stage process:
      
      1. Create your Instagram Reel and share it with us by following these steps:
         1. Invite us as a collaborator
            1. Tap Tag people
            2. Tap Invite collaborator
            3. Search for underwaterawards and tap the account
            4. Tap Done
         2. Add tags to the caption
            
            1. @underwaterawards
            2. #UnderwaterAwards
            3. #UnderwaterAwardsReels
            4. #UnderwaterAwardsAustralasia
         3. Tap Share
      2. Copy the URL of your Reel to the clipboard by navigating to the Reel, hitting the three-dot menu (or arrow share button on some devices), and tapping Copy link.
      3. Log in to your account on UnderwaterCompetition.com, hit the Submit Your Videos tab, enter basic information about your Reel, including the URL that you just copied, and pay for your entry.
      4. Complete your submission by hitting the My Entries tab, clicking on the entry form link at the bottom of the page, and emailing a PDF version of the form to contact@divephotoguide.com.
   5. Only paid entries with corresponding URLs of shared Reels will be considered eligible submissions.
   6. Deleting your Reel will remove your entry from consideration.
7. JUDGING, AWARDS, PRIZES
   1. Judging is a four-step process:
      1. Round 1: DPG staff shortlist entries based on aesthetic and technical criteria, while discarding entries in clear breach of the rules or in incorrect categories.
      2. Round 2: Each Jury member receives all the shortlisted entries and is tasked with selecting and ranking their top 20 in each category. (The higher the rank, the more points the entry receives.) Points from all Jury members are collated, and the 10–15 entries with highest scores in each category make it to the next round; these are the semi-finalists.
      3. Round 3: Each Jury member ranks the semi-finalist entries. Their rankings are combined, providing up to 10 finalist entries per category (ranked according to points). RAW files requests are sent for all finalists. RAW files are carefully examined to ensure any editing complies with the rules applicable in the relevant category. Any entries not in compliance are removed.
      4. Round 4: The Jury selects the awarded entries, typically 4 to 6 per category, and the overall winner.
   2. The key dates in the judging process are as follows:
      1. Jul 20th–30th, 2026: Entries shortlisted (round 1)
      2. Jul 31st–Aug 12th: Judging (rounds 2 and 3)
      3. Aug 13th–15th: RAW files submitted by finalists
      4. Aug 16th–17th: Awarded entries selected (round 4)
      5. Sep 5th: Winners announced
   3. Failure to provide a RAW file in a timely manner will result in the entry being disqualified. The only exception to this rule is if the entrant’s camera is not capable of recording images in RAW format, in which case supplying an original, unedited JPG/JPEG file is acceptable. The Owners also reserve the right to ask any entrant to supply a range of “before” and “after” original files for any image that requires further authentication.
   4. Any entry found not to comply with the Rules & Guidelines at any stage of the Competition may be disqualified. No refunds or allowances will be made in the event of disqualification and any prizes will be forfeited. The decision of the Owners on all matters relating to the Competition is final and binding. No negotiation will be considered. The Owners reserve the right to amend the Rules & Guidelines and to waive breach of the Rules & Guidelines at their sole discretion, acting reasonably.
   5. During judging, and with the express agreement of the Owners, the Jury reserves the right to not award any entry within a category.
   6. The Jury’s decisions are final.
   7. Successful entrants will be notified in strict confidence. The entrant must not disclose the details of any shortlisted or winning entries to any third party prior to the public announcement of the competition results.
   8. Prizes are neither transferable nor exchangeable for cash. Prizes must be claimed within one year of the awards announcements (or within a mutually agreed period) unless otherwise specified or the prize will be forfeited. Travel prizes are to be redeemed subject to availability and must be booked and completed in a time frame suitable for both recipient and vendor.
   9. An entrant can win multiple times in each category but only the top prize will be awarded. The next prize will be passed on to the next winner down the line, and so forth.
8. PUBLICITY
   1. All entrants agree that, if their entry is selected by the Jury, they will participate in related publicity and agree to the use of their name and likeness for the purposes of advertising, promotion, and publicity of this and future variants of the Competition and/or the Exhibition without additional compensation.
9. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
   1. Each entry must be the original work of the entrant and must not infringe the rights of any other party.
   2. The entrant must either be the sole owner of the copyright in the entry submitted or have secured the written permission of the copyright owner or any joint owners of the copyright to submit the entry into the Competition. A copy of any such written permission must be supplied to the Owners on request.
   3. In the event that an entrant is not the sole copyright owner of the entry, the entrant agrees to notify the Owners at the date of submission, providing the names of the copyright owner or any joint owners of the copyright.
   4. Ownership of the copyright in any entry submitted to the Competition will remain with the copyright holder(s). The holder(s) will be credited wherever an entry is reproduced, published, exhibited, and/or communicated to the public. In the event of inadvertent omission of the credit, the holder(s) agree(s) that the Owners will not be liable to the holder(s).
   5. By entering the Competition, the entrant grants to the Owners a non-exclusive, irrevocable licence to reproduce, publish, exhibit, and communicate to the public, by any means, and in all media throughout the world. This licence is granted for use in relation to current and future Competition(s), Exhibition(s), and Touring Exhibition(s), which shall include (with the right to sublicence where necessary)—but will not be limited to—any of the following uses:
      1. the process of judging the Competition (including any public vote);
      2. display during the awards ceremony, Exhibition, and/or Touring Exhibition (prints of entries made for an Exhibition will be kept as a collection for possible exhibitions at other venues);
      3. publication in magazines, e-magazines, media websites or print media which the Owners (or their official partners, supporters, or sponsors) may endorse;
      4. publication on relevant parts of the Owners’ websites, including within interactive elements available for viewing or download;
      5. publicity materials, including social media (awarded submissions may be used by the Owners for the purposes of promoting the Competition, Exhibition, and/or Touring Exhibition from the date of notification of awarded submissions until the end of the Exhibition and/or Touring Exhibition, and thereafter the Owners may keep the awarded submissions within an archive);
      6. publication in an awards book, featuring a selection of shortlisted and winning entries.
10. LIABILITY
    1. Proof of electronic submission is not proof of receipt by the Owners.
    2. The Owners cannot be held responsible for emails that do not arrive due to an entrant’s email security settings or restrictions placed by their Internet Service Provider. Entrants must ensure that their settings accept emails from the Owners.
    3. The Owners cannot be held liable for any loss of or damage to any entry submitted into the Competition howsoever caused or for any other loss or damage as a result.
    4. The Owners cannot be held liable for the misuse of images and/or failure of any third party to comply with the Competition’s credit guidelines.
    5. Non-awarded digital entries submitted into the Competition will not be stored or returned by the Owners after the names of awardees are announced.
    6. The Owners cannot be held liable for any loss or damage suffered by any entrant in relation to the Competition or the use of any prize.
11. DATA PROTECTION
    1. The personal data of entrants will be managed by the Owners in accordance with data protection legislation.
    2. The Owners will collect personal data about entrants (and the entrant’s parent/guardian where applicable) at the time of registration, and as otherwise provided in order to administer the Competition and/or all associated activities.
    3. By entering the Competition you are agreeing to be contacted by the Owners as well as the Competition’s sponsors and partners. All parties will honour any requests to no longer be contacted.
    4. Entrants may contact the Owners at any time to update their details and/or preferences regarding the permitted use of their personal data.
12. COMPLAINTS
    1. The Owners cannot be held responsible if, owing to force majeure or any other cause outside their control, changes are made to dates or even if the Competition is altered or cancelled. Should you have any complaints or compliments please contact contact@divephotoguide.com.