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News - October 2005
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Wildlife
Photographer of the Year
Another World
October BSoUP meeting
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Linda Pitkin's
Exhibition
BSoUP website attracts 6,000 visits in a
month
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Wildlife Photographer of
the Year
Congratulations to BSoUP members
Alex Mustard, Charles Hood and Malcolm Hey on their success in the
Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2005 competition organised by The
Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
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An exhibition of all winning,
specially and higly commended entries is now open at the Natural
Hisotory Museum, South Kensington Lonodon until Sunday 23
April.
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Animal Portraits
Winner
Snapper shoal
Alexander Mustard
(UK)
The Bohar snapper
is as fearsome as it looks, being one of the larger reef predators in
the Red Sea (this one was about 70 centimetres - 27 inches).
Alexander travelled to Ras Mohamed National Park at the tip of the
Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, in June, specifically to photograph snappers
and other fish during their spawning season. Snappers are normally
solitary, but when spawning, they are found in huge aggregations.
Alexander wanted to illuminate the strange face of the fish, while at
the same time give an impression of the menacing scale of the
gathering. But it's snappers themselves that are in danger, as
outside the safety of the park, fishermen will target shoals,
catching them before the fish have had a chance to spawn.
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Nikon D100 with Nikon 105mm f2.8
lens
1/45 sec at f13; 200 ISO; Subal underwater housing,
Cobra head and Subtronic flash.
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Nikon D100 with Sigma 28-70mm lens; 1/180 sec at
f16; 200 ISO; Subal underwater housing; Subtronic underwater
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Animal Behaviour: All Other
Animals
Runner-up - Shy hamlet romance
Alexander Mustard
(UK) While diving in Grand
Cayman, Alexander spent many evenings watching hamlets spawning. Like
a lot of reef fish, they mate at dusk. Of the 10 species in the
Caribbean, the one Alexander really hoped to see was the shy hamlet.
Finally, he came across this pair. Floating motionless so as not to
disturb their natural behaviour, he watched them. Here the two
embrace as the female (head down) starts to produce eggs for the male
to fertilise. Hamlets are among the few higher animals that are
hermaphrodites, and within a couple of minutes, the pair had swapped
sexual roles, and the spawning caresses started again. Over about 20
minutes, they exchanged sexual roles six times.
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The Underwater World
Highly commended -Reclining emperor shrimp
Malcolm Hey
(UK) Twirling and whirling in
a crimson leotard and white tutu, the Spanish dancer (a large
nudibranch, or seaslug) emerges to feed at night. Sometimes it has a
passive partner, an emperor shrimp, tucked in the frilly folds of its
gills. The tiny shrimp (about a centimetre - 0.4 inches long) turns
red to blend in with its host's costume. Malcolm's sharp eye picked
it out during a night-dive on the coral reef at Mandado Bay, at the
northeastern tip of Sulawesi, Indonesia. But he had to wait for the
right choreographic moment. 'A slack current gave me ample
opportunity to photograph the Spanish dancer when it was resting,' he
says. 'But it was a while before the shrimp moved into the best
position.'
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Nikon F90X with Nikon 60mm macro lens;
1/125 sec at f22; Fujichrome Velvia; underwater housing, two
strobes.
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Nikon D100 with
28mm Nikkor lens; 1/90 sec at f8; 200 ISO; Sea and Sea
housing. |
The Underwater World
Specially commended - Great
hammerhead
Charles Hood
(UK) Charles Hood went to the
north Bahamas specifically to photograph sharks, his favourite
subject being the fearsome great hammerhead - even other sharks keep
out of its way. On this day, he had no luck until, just before
sunset, one big individual turned up to investigate a tuna head
attached to a rope (pulled up immediately so as not to feed the shark
and make it associate food with boats). Noticing that the crashing of
the boat's stern into the water was creating a mass of white foam,
Charles manoeuvred into position so that the bubbles provided a
backdrop as the shark passed between him and the boat. 'After several
runs, the boat crashed down just as the shark swam into frame,
producing this dramatic silhouette. I only noticed the pilot fish
when I downloaded the files.'
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ANOTHER WORLD Colours,
textures and patterns of the reef by Dos Winkel
The photographs in this book
focus on the incredible colours, patterns and textures to be found -
but more often missed - on coral reefs. Technical information about
the tools and techniques used in capturing the images are provided
and each image is captioned. The accompanying text includes
information on the formation of reefs, the huge variety of organisims
that make their lives on, and often give life to the reefs, and how
crucial the reefs are to the well- being, not only the islands
protected by them, but also the World as a whole.
Available now! For further
information please contact Juliet Henney - Publicity
Manager, ACC Books.
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October BSoUP
meeting
The next BSoUP meeting takes
place on Wednesday 19th October 2005 at 7.30 for 8.00 p.m.
The
Holland Club, Imperial College, London SW7 5BD.
Kicking off the evening is
committee member and Anglicised Frenchman JP TRENQUE talking about
BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY. JP has been diving most of his life and
taking pictures for the last few years - with welcome success at
Antibes last year and a win at the St. Abbs splash-in this August, JP
has progressed quickly and will offer his tips on
monochrome.
COMPETITION 1 - FOCUS ON
FINAL
If you have qualified for the
Focus On Final (1st or 2nd place in a monthly competition) with a
digital image, we already have your images ready to enter.
If you have qualified with a
slide you will have received an email reminding you - so please don't
forget to bring your slide or arrange for it to be delivered to the
meeting!
COMPETITION 2 - BEST OF
BRITISH PORTFOLIO
The first of the season of our
prestigious annual portfolio competitions, the Best of British is
open to paid-up members only. Each member can submit a portfolio of
six 35 mm slides or digital images arranged in two rows of three.
Send digital entries to competitions@bsoup.org in
advance, or bring your portfolios along on the night - n.b. digital
entries MUST already be stored as a portfolio, we are sorry but if
you bring six separate digital images on the night they will not be
accepted.
All portfolios, slide or
digital, will be judged in a single category by the audience present
at the meeting. The winner will receive the BSoUP Best of British
Trophy and a cheque for £100 donated by Sport Diver Magazine, who
reserve the right to publish the winning portfolio. Please check the
rules for
details
MAIN EVENT - MATTHEW
FORD - SHOOTING FOR IMAGE LIBRARIES
Matthew, among other things,
heads up the image library Oceans-Image His most recent, very exciting deal
was an image on
the front cover of Time magazine, taken by none other than our own
Charles Hood. Matthew is a professional land photographer and will
discuss shooting for image libraries including protocols and
copyrights.
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Linda Pitkin's
Exhibition moves to Cuckfield
Linda Pitkin's Exhibition of
prints has moved from the London Aquarium to The Gallery Dental
Practice in Cuckfield, Sussex until Christmas.
The exhibition features a
selection of her stunning images of marine animals and scenes from
tropical and temperate waters around the world.
The Gallery is open Monday
through Thursday between 9.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. and from 9.00 a.m.
to 4.00 p.m. on Friday.
Further details www.lindapitkin.net
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Whale shark © Linda
Pitkin |
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BSoUP website attracts
6,000 visits in a month
Over the last month and a half
the BSoUP site has been modified by Brian Pitkin and JP Trenque to
enable the number of visiitor's to be tracked. During the month of
September, the first complete month for which statisitics are
available, 6,000 visit's were recorded.
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The top nine pages
visited, after the Home page, last month in order of popularity were
Gallery, International Focus on, News, Photosites,
Competitions, Basic Techniques, Courses, Links and Focus on. The Courses page is out of date, so if
you are running a course please send details to Brian Pitkin. If you have a link
from the Member's page and have not renewed your subscriiption for
2005, please renew now or the link will be removed. |
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