Linda Pitkin went as an invitee on the jury to an
annual underwater photography competition in the
Canary Islands. The 11th Open International Fotosub
Isla de El Hierro was held from 22-28 October, 2007. Here Linda recounts her impressions of an eventful
and very enjoyable week.
Winning portfolio by Arturo Telle
The horn sounds at 9 a.m. and the race is on.
A fleet of RIBS speeds out of La Restinga harbour,
jostling for position as they carry the competitors
to their allotted dive sites, each team keyed up
for the stressful task of making the best possible
photos in 60 minutes underwater. The three days of
competition of the 11th Open International Fotosub
Isla de El Hierro have started now in earnest.
This Fotosub is a prestigious annual event
with big money prizes, and this October it attracted
22 underwater photographers with their models
or assistants, mainly from Spain and the Canary
Islands and a few from Germany and France. As
fate will have it, something is bound to go wrong
for somebody when it really counts, and German
photographer Andreas Koffka had a disastrous first
dive when his memory card persisted in giving an
error message despite him surfacing twice, getting
back on the RIB, and opening the camera housing to
try and fix the problem.
It is incidents like this that made me glad I
was on the jury, and our boat left half an hour later
for us to enjoy a relaxed dive with no pressure on
us other than the watery kind. Fine weather meant
that we did not have to contend with the rough seas that made the competition more challenging the
previous year.
It was my first visit to the Canary Islands and,
after 28 years of diving, my first experience of
something in between Britain and the tropics, and I
was pleasantly surprised. Firstly, as I hit the water,
it was a relief to find I could manage OK in the
still warm season with my one piece 5 mm wetsuit,
plus hood, and I didn’t regret that I’d been unable
to squeeze the second piece, my top jacket, into
my bulging luggage. Then, the water clarity was impressive, 20 metres or more visibility, and the
marine life was fascinating as it was all new to me.
I could see plenty of scope for the photographers
in the competition, with striking volcanic scenery
all around and a good diversity of fish and other
animals including an abundance of some of a
tropical nature, such as parrotfish, trumpetfish and
filefish. El Hierro has a richer fauna because it is the
most southerly of the Canary Islands with slightly
warmer waters than the others. Helping to preserve
the coastal area around La Restinga, at the southern where there are restrictions on fishing
and diving is mainly limited to sites
marked by buoys.
Not much English is spoken on
the island and, struggling to recall any
of my rusty Spanish picked up during
fieldwork in Costa Rica 11 years ago,
I was glad that the dive briefings just
before we dropped in off the boat
were brief. For Brian and I it was a
case of suck it and see. On one dive
I followed Brian to a small pinnacle
at about ten metres, but I knew we
must be in the wrong place. Straining my eyes far out into the hazy blue,
I caught a glimpse of bubbles, and
heading across a stretch of open water
we eventually found our group diving
around a massively tall pinnacle that
dropped to the sand at 40 metres.
I enjoyed all the dives we did,
especially El Bajon and El Desierto.
Pelagic fishes swirl around the sheer
current-scoured faces of El Bajon,
and several large groupers too, but
my favourite
Diver and anemone by Carlos Villoch
grouper had to be docile
and photographer-friendly Pancho, the
resort’s 40 kg mascot that lives at El
Desierto among the rocks 30 metresto save him from the threat of being
fished, so that he can enjoy the full 50
years such a grouper might live to.
The competitors dived twice a day and submitted two photographs
to be judged each of the first two
days, plus two extra on the third day,
that they had taken on any of the
three days. The standard was very
impressive and a pleasure for us in
the jury to see, but quite hard work to
make the all-important decisions in
the scoring, especially on the last day
when we had to go through all the 176 pictures to make the final selection
of the top ten teams, best wide angle
and macro, best model, photo most
representative of El Hierro, and our
favourite photo of a Canary Islands
parrotfish. This fish is the emblem
of the event and something of a
local speciality not just in the water
but rather disconcertingly on the
restaurant menus too. It does seem
just a little a bit unfair to spend the
dive establishing a rapport with a fish
and then go and eat it for dinner!
The jury was made up of three
from Spain and the Canary Islands,
plus the Hungarian underwater
photographer Tibor Dombavani, and
myself, making for an international
mix. After much deliberation we were
happy to pick as the overall winner
Arturo Telle from Gran Canaria
with his model Teresa Rodriguez.Arturo’s collection of eight images
was spectacular. Second place went to
David Barrio and Luisa Quintanilla,
and third to Julio DÌaz and Esther
Torrent.
The organization of the Fotosub
was excellent and a credit to the
tireless efforts and attention to every
detail of Carlos Minguell (three
times world champion of underwater
photography) and his team of helpers.
The scale of the event was amazing in
the small, quiet, fishing village of La
Restinga. El Hierro is the smallest and
least touristy of the Canary Islands,
and the Fotosub is the event of the
year for local people too, young and
old. The enormous marquee erected
on
Fish portrait by Jesus Villlaba
the harbourside to stage the shows
was full to overflowing on the night of
the awards, when we were entertained
by an amusing and cleverly put
together film of the competition, and a
terrific instrumental band including a
brilliant timple player (a characteristic
Canary Islands instrument). In the
main street of La Restinga a fiesta
continued through the night, and as
we prepared to leave for our early
morning flight home, the young locals
were still dancing to the throb of the
disco.
