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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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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Nikon
D100 with Sigma 28-70mm lens; 1/180 sec at f16; 200 ISO;
Subal underwater housing; Subtronic underwater flash.
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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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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.’ |
Nikon
D100 with 28mm Nikkor lens; 1/90 sec at f8; 200 ISO; Sea
& Sea housing.
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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!
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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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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. |
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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