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| © Save Our Seas Ltd/Tom Campbell |
The story behind Tom Campbell's grand prize photo: Tom Campbell, filmmaker and photographer, and fellow filmmaker and photographer Howard Hall were commissioned to shoot a film in the Channel Islands of Southern California, US. Their first project was to capture imagery of the drift nets, once common throughout the Santa Barbara Channel, which separates the Channel Islands from the mainland. Diving 100 feet below the surface in an area where the seafloor was more than 5,000 feet below them, they were horrified by the sight of suffering and death. Dolphins, seal lions, whales and anything that swam into these nets, which could stretch for a mile, were caught and drowned.
Soon after they began shooting images, fishermen found out about their activities and were not pleased with the attention that their fishing activities were attracting. This did not deter Tom and his partner. Trained as a military diver, Tom set up a nighttime operation where he would dive after midnight to avoid drawing the attention of the fishermen. Eventually the fishermen found out about his nighttime activities. As a result, they Tom and Howard were harassed and even received death threats. Undeterred, they continued to capture images and footage of the gruesome death.
"I took this shot at 4am. Light was starting to come up from beneath," said Campbell of his winning photo. "This was an animal that was struggling to get to the surface for a breath of air and finally succumbed to its entanglement in the net."
"I can tell you this shot has done something for the environment," said Campbell. As a result of this and his other photos, legislation was passed to stop this destructive practice. "It was one of the pictures used to restrict the use of gill nets in the Channels Islands."
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