The 2025 Randy Glenn Memorial Photo and Video Contest was held at the Boeing Activities Center in Everett, on Thursday, October 23rd. More than 20 SeaHorse members, family and friends gathered to catch up with their scuba club buddies and meet new friends, and admire the work of our club’s talented photographers and videographers.
Boeing Activities Center Venue
Since our club members are spread out from Camano Island in the north, to Harstine Island in the south, we try to alternate our photo contest venue from north to south. This year, it was the north’s turn, and Robyn Sherwood from Boeing Recreation graciously offered to let us hold it in one of their meeting rooms. We generally hold this event at a restaurant with a private space, but since those are becoming more expensive and harder to find, we decided to give the Activities Center a try. It was very nice, with plenty of room, and tables for displaying the entries, AV equipment, and chairs we could set up to view the video entries.
On to the Contest!
We started the contest by viewing the entries in the video category. We need to take a moment to thank George’s friend Sergey, for saving this part of the competition. It turns out, somebody, who will remain nameless, forgot to bring their laptop for showing videos. Dave Wakeley lives close enough that he was going to dash home and get his, but as he was rushing out the door, Sergey spoke up and said, “Um, I have mine in my car. Would that work?” And the contest was saved.
There were four videos entered this year:
- Manta Point, by Gary Schnaith
- Star of the Show, by Ed Gullekson
- Six-Gill Encounter, by Ed Gullekson
- 1,999th Dive, by Randy Pederson
The competition was fierce, with giant mantas duking it out with adorable grunt sculpins, but in the end, Randy’s whimsical video, 1,999th Dive was the winner.
Judging the Photos
Part of the fun of the photo contest is that everybody who attends, members, family, and friends, gets to vote. Each person was given 10 sticky dots to place next to their favorite in each category. Again, the competition was spirited.
The winners in each category were:
- Cold Water Macro: Squat Lobster, Ed Gullekson
- Cold Water Wide-Angle: Sund Rock Wolf=Eel, Ed Gullekson
- Warm Water Macro: Leaf Scorpionfish, Gary Schnaith
- Warm Water Wide-Angle: Tropical Octopus, Gary Schnaith
- Special Category (Cartilaginous Fish): Lemon Shark Smile, Ed Gullekson
- Above Water (Dive Related): Evening Dive with Pieter, Ed Gullekson
- Photoshoot: Flounder Closeup, Ed Gullekson
- Club Member Photo: Pieter Underwater, Ed Gullekson
- Artistic: collage, Nudi Fanta-Sea, Ed Gullekson
Best-In-Show
The winner for Best-In-Show, where all of the category winners square off against each other, was Ed Gullekson, with his Cold Water Wide-Angle photo, Sund Rock Wolf-Eel.
As you can see, it was a big night for Ed Gullekson.
Photo Contest Calendar
All of the winning entries will be featured in the SeaHorse Dive Club, 2026 Photo Contest Calendar, available on our online store on Zazzle.com. We’ll also have a Northwest Diving Calendar, and a Tropical Diving calendar featuring the work of our talented club photographers. The 2026 calendars will be available soon.
Acknowledgements
Thank you for all of our contestants who put their work out there for us to enjoy. Thank you to Sergey, who provided the emergency laptop, who we also drafted to be our AV expert and run that part of the show. We would also like to thank Robyn Sherwood from Recreation, for providing our venue, and all of the staff who were all extremely helpful, and went above and beyond to make this event work.
Finally, thanks to everybody who came out. We had a lot of fun, and hopefully we’ll see you all again next year.
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