TITLE: "Stalactite kingdom"

Nature is a magician who can create beautiful things. These things include the world of flooded caves in Mexico's Yucatan. This peninsula is famous for being crisscrossed with hundreds of miles of flooded caves. Their stalactite decorations are fascinating. This image, taken at Tux Kupaxa Cave, captures just a tiny fraction of that beauty.

AUTHOR: Petr Polách (Czech Republic)

I come from the Czech Republic. I have been photographing for a long time and after I started scuba diving in 2003, I took this hobby to the world under the water as well. I have visited different parts of the world, from warm, southern oceans and seas, through geographically moderate places to northern areas with very cold water. In recent years I have been focusing on photography in flooded cave systems in the Yucatan. This Mexican peninsula has the largest flooded cave systems in the world. The landscape of flooded caves is characterized by the unusual beauty of its scenery, stalactite decoration, variety of shapes and sizes of cave spaces. The caves are characterized by an unfavourable situation, namely absolute darkness, which is a great challenge for the photographer - how to light the scene? When photographing "over water", I mainly focus on landscape and street photography.