I am very
pleased to have won the BSoUP Open Portfolio, which I, like
many, regard as the premiere annual competition in British
underwater photography.
All these
images were taken during 2004. 5 of them with my Nikon D100
and one of them with film on my Nikon F100. I have actually
just sold my D100 and housing to our esteemed Chairman, and
while I miss it greatly (as I wait for my new camera) I think
that winning this competition is a nice send off for it.
It is great
that BSoUP competitions are now fully open to digital images
and that digital and film images compete side by side in a
single category. This is a great step for the future and I
hope that it attracts more digital photographers to BSoUP,
while continuing to support those who shoot film. Personally,
it also allows me to start
entering competitions again - after not really entering much
over the last two years since I switched over to digital.
1) Red
rope sponge and diver - Babylon, North Wall, Grand Cayman.
I
actually took this picture while I was running a coral spawning
trip for UK travel agent Divequest during September 2004.
We had amazing
visibility that week, so I did a lot of wide angle. The model's
torch was added in Photoshop - using a lens flare filter,
which I think lifts the image a bit, and gives it more depth.
2) Diver
in silversides - Eden Rock, George Town, Grand Cayman.
During the summer the caves and shipwrecks around Grand Cayman
fill
up with tiny silverside fish. On film I always struggled with
exposure, but shooting them on digital this summer, with instant
image review to help my exposures, made it much easier. Through
trial and error, I chose to slightly over expose the background
to get better separation of the diver to avoid him beiing
lost in a dark background.
3) Bohar
snapper telephoto - Ras Mohammed, Egypt, Red Sea. One of the
highlights of my diving year is going to the North Red Sea
each
summer with friends from BSoUP. We go at that time for the
schools
that gather at Ras Mohammed for spawning. In attempt to get
a
different shot of the snappers I took this with a 105mm lens
(160mm
equivalent on 35mm) from a camera to subject distance of 2
metres. I
had my strobes pushed forward well ahead of my camera, and
knew that I would be able to adjust the white balance of the
shot to stop the image looking too blue. The telephoto lens
flattens the perspective
of the image, pulling the fish behind closer to the main subject,
but
also keeping them out of focus so they don't distract the
eye too much. This is a shot that I could not have taken on
film - exactly
the type of image that excites me about digital.
4) Jumping
pygmy seahorse - Nudi Falls, Lembeh Strait, Sulawesi,
March 2004. Pygmy seahorses are heavily photographed by underwater
photographers, so when I am photographing them I am always
looking for an unusual image. This shot is actually one of
a series of 4 that I took to create a composite image that
won BSoUP's Focus On digital competition earlier in the year.
Divequest chose this shot for the cover of their 2005 brochure,
and since then I have liked it much more! I prefer to shoot
pygmies without a modelling light as it means that they tend
to turn away from the camera much less.
5) Circling
divers - Turtle Farm Reef, Grand Cayman, April 2004. This
image seemed very simple in my mind, but once underwater it
was a
real pain to try and create. This was because one of the divers
had
never used a scooter before! I chose to shoot this image on
film
(even though I had my digital camera underwater with me) because
I
believe that film captures the subtlety of a sunburst better
than
digital. As far as I am concerned, it is still a case of choosing
the
best tool for the job (even though I find that it is digital
9 times
out of 10).
6) Mating
shy hamlets - Wreck of the Oro Verde, Grand Cayman, April
2004. Hamlets fascinate me as photographic subjects because
they are just so weird. Not only are the different "species"
indistinguishable genetically, probably because they have
evolved so recently, but also they are one of the few vertebrates
that are true simultaneous hermaphrodites. During a spawning
encounter the pair actually take it in turns to play each
sexual role. I have been watching and photographing hamlets
spawning for a couple of years now, and can predict where
and when they will spawn to the nearest minute. Now I have
gained that knowledge, getting a shot like this is pretty
straight forward.
