Series of Freedive Blackouts

• Prize
  Silver in Editorial/sports
• Photographer
  Kohei Ueno
• Agency / Studio
  Kohei Ueno Photography
• Technical Info
  Sony A7r3 With Nauticam Underwater Housing, 16-35mm, F/2.8 Gm, Manual
• Photo Date
  25/05/2022

Freediving is a dangerous sport if proper guidelines and protocols are not followed. One of the common consequence is called a shallow water blackout. While shallow-water blackouts are a frequent cause of death for freedivers and spearfishers, blackouts are usually only fatal when one is diving alone. When the number one rule in freediving is employed (never freedive alone), a diver’s buddy, also known as a safety diver, can bring a blacked-out diver back to the surface where he/she performs a proper safety protocol to bring the diver back to consciousness within a few seconds.

Kohei is an international award winning photographer from Japan, specialising in freediving and underwater photography based out of Asia. He picked up his first camera in 2014 when he quit his job at Google to travel the world, capturing images along the way that won him 1st place at the 2016 Alpha Awards. Since then, he's taken the camera underwater combining it with his passion for freediving. Since then he’s won multiple awards with numerous work published locally and abroad, including 2nd place at the Sony World Photography Awards, and winning the 2019 IPA Sports Photographer of the Year.