| Winning
Portfolio 2005 |
Sam Bean and Alex Mustard are joint winners of British Society
of Underwater Photographers (BSoUP) Best of British Portfolio
2005. Sam, who works as a plant biologist in Norwich, learnt
to dive with PADI in 1999 and shortly afterwards she joined
the Great Yarmouth branch of BSAC. Currently Sam is the Assistant
Diving Officer for the club and enjoys organising dives to explore
the local North Sea shipwrecks.
Sam's
interest in photography started about 4 years ago. Frustrated
by the early images that lacked colour and suffered from backscatter,
Sam went on a weekend course with leading underwater photographer
Martin Edge. Within the weekend the problems were sorted out
and since then Sam hasn't looked back. In 2003 Sam was awarded
the BSoUP Beginners Portfolio and this year Sam has achieved
second places at the BSoUP Splash- In at Plymouth and the
Splash-In Competition at St Abbs.
Creating
a portfolio with impact for the BSoUP Best of British Competition
has taken weeks of painful deliberation over what were strong
images, which had impact, and looked a bit different, but
above all the images had to work together.
All
images in this portfolio were captured whilst Sam was diving
at Plymouth and St Abbs with friends from the British Society
of Underwater Photographers (BSoUP) and Bristol Underwater
Photography Group (BUPG). |
 |
The
image of an octopus sat amongst orange dead men's fingers is
the only image in the portfolio to be captured on film on a
Nikon F100 camera with 60mm lens (f22, 1/60s). All other images
were taken using a Nikon D70 camera with Sea and Sea housing
and strobe and 60mm lens. |
 |
The
portrait shot of a John Dory emphasised the "distinguished
gentleman" appearance of this fish, the flash light from
the strobe highlighting the wonderful green eye (f20, 1/60s).
|
 |
A
pair of blue rayed limpets who were grazing on a kelp frond
made a simple image (f16, 1/60s). Although tiny in size, their
striking iridescent rays attracted attention, shining out from
the bed of gently swaying golden kelp. |
 |
Mr
Charisma in the portfolio is the tompot blenny, who was photographed
when curiously peeping out from a rocky crevice (f22, 1/60s).
The large, friendly eyes and the comical eyebrow tentacles give
a touch of cute to the portfolio and contrast against the rather
mournful look of the John Dory. |
 |
A
small clump of ross (or rose) coral provided a splash of vibrant
orange in the portfolio and provided a link to the warm colours
in the other images (f22, 1/60s). |
 |
The
third and final fish portrait was a cheeky Ballan wrasse, which
obviously had ambitions of stardom and persisted in posing in
front of the camera (f11, 1/60s). |
