Shades of Colour is an underwater photo competition we've been running for years in Dive Pacific magazine. Enter and you might have your image published in the magazine, as well as win Sea Tech vouchers!

The New Zealand Underwater Association (NZUA) have launched a new look for Dive Pacific magazine in the form of an interactive website.

Our competition schedule can be found here. We are currently taking entries for the next comp.

Shades of Colour Year in Review

All images are copyright the photographer and used by permission. Please contact us if you wish to use any of these images and we can put you in touch with them.

After a brief hiatus, Shades of Colour returned this year. Month after month, we’ve had the (in)enviable(?) task of choosing the best images. Did we choose the correct ones? We think so, but some of these competitions were very close.

We’ve made a selection of some of our favourite entries into Shades of Colour Photo Competition this year. We tried to include a diverse range of images, though a few more eels than you might expect have snuck in here!

Thank you to all our entrants, it wouldn’t be possible without you! Special thanks to Alex Stammers and Matt Dowse, whom we tried not to feature too heavily, which is tricky because their photos are excellent, and even more special thanks in advance to anyone who can take them on in 2023 in the Advanced category.

We’d like to encourage any new entrants into the Novice category in 2023! Entering competitions can be a great way to push yourself to learn and grow – which is one of our favourite things to see. But also: win vouchers!

Our next competition doesn’t wrap up until 31 January 2023, so we’d love to see your summer pics!

Have a great holiday season! Get yourself in the water!

Dave Moran and Sophie Fraser

*Note: We included #179 as it was published in 2022; the images were collected in 2021.