A Sussex man's underwater picture of his wife cradling their baby in her arms has received international recognition and scooped a top award.

In the shot, water baby Steffi-Anne Chapman smiles and gurgles happily at her mother Nikki. To make the family circle complete, her dad Ian was behind the camera.

Friends persuaded Ian to enter four pictures into a competition run by web site underwaterphotography.com.

His shot of Nikki and Steffi-Anne won a silver medal.

Another close-up of Nikki admiring a passing clown fish, taken beneath the waves of the Caribbean, hooked a bronze.

Ian, 39, of The Twitten, Ditchling, is a carpenter, diving instructor, retained fireman at Keymer and a keen photographer.

He is delighted at his first photographic accolade.

He said: "I've been taking photographs for ten years but I have never entered anything before so it's a great compliment to win two awards."

Capturing that special bond between mother and child took careful planning and, in the end, split-second luck.

Ian said: "Time is obviously of the essence and I knew in my mind's eye how I wanted the picture to look.

"But Steffi-Anne was eight months old and you only have a limited time for when a child will hold their breath. In that shot, Nikki smiled first and then Steffi-Anne just smiled back at her. It was an incredible moment."

Ian's love of diving brought Niki and him together.

He was working as a diving instructor in Cyprus when he began taking pictures in the seas off Larnaka.

When he returned to England, he met Nikki, a grown-up water baby and now a master diver.

When she became pregnant with Steffi-Anne, there was only one place they wanted her to be born - under water.

A birthing pool was installed in their dining room and Steffi-Anne arrived in the world amid a flurry of bubbles.

Ian said: "We were very much into marine stuff so we were keen to try this technique. It was the first time the midwife had done a water birth but it all went smoothly and since then she has been a water baby."

Steffi-Anne has been swimming since she was three months old.

She started splashing in a baby swimming class in Uckfield, where Ian's winning photograph was taken.

Now at five, she is a watersports fan just like her parents.

Ian said: "She will swim underwater as well, if not better, than on the surface. She finds it very, very natural.

"She has travelled across world with us and has been in different seas on diving holidays."

Ian, who works with Brighton Dive Company in Kemp Town, is now combining dive coaching with his hobby and teaching underwater photography.