This year's event took place on Saturday 3rd July at the The Mount Batten Centre. All underwater photographers were invited to participate either by entering prints taken prior to the event or slides taken 'On the Day' to compete for the trophies and personal awards. In addition for the first time the competition also included a digital class.

More than 50 prints were submitted in advance in the British and Open class and despite the appalling weather forecast a total of 30 underwater photographers participated in the 'On the Day' competition - 20 film and 10 digital.

Jellyfish & diver Trevor Rees 2nd Overseas Prints	Coral trout Len Deeley 1st Overseas Prints	Diver in cave William Hewitt 3rd Overseas Prints

Being a first for the Society, the digital rules were kept simple. There was only one category but digital photographers could enter up to three images. The images had to be taken as JPGs, and were downloaded directly from the camera's memory card into the BSoUP laptop computer and resized to screen resolution for projection. No post processing, RAW conversion or any other form of manipulation was allowed.

Tompot blennies Bob Soames 1st British Prints	Cuttlefish Trevor Rees 2nd British Prints	Seal Ken Sullivan 3rd British Prints

Films were issued to participants and digital camera memory cards checked on the Friday evening so that all could make an early start on Saturday morning. At the last minute on Friday evening the registration venue was switched to the adjacent Mount Batten Hotel bar, as the Mount Batten Centre, under new management, was not serving hot meals, except those pre-booked by noon.

Following breakfast on Saturday, where there was a second opportunity to register, participants set off in small groups, either by car to shore dive around Plymouth or by boat. Few ventured outside of Plymouth Sound due to the rough sea conditions, which meant visibilty was down to almost zero in places.

Jewel anemones Alan James 1st On the Day - Digital	Diver in wreck Trevor Rees 2nd On the Day - Digital	Tompot blenny Joe Foxcroft 3rd On the Day - Digital

By tea-time, 20 exposed films were returned to for processing off site by Spectrum PhotoLabs. The prints were put on display in the Waterside Room for all to admire and judge. A barbeque was held on the patio alongside the Waterside Room and 30 photographers and their friends sat down to eat and swap tales of their recent exploits. By 8.00, the films were returned to their respective photographers to make a selection of their best two macro, wide-angle or fish photographs for projection. The assembled audience were then invited to vote for their favourite thee in the digital class and each of the four categories in the 'On the Day' class. Once all votes had been counted the results were announced.

Len Deeley won the Open Prints category with a photograph of a coral trout, beating Trevor Rees' jellyfish and diver and William Hewitt's diver in a cave's horse mackerel.

Bob Soames was the winner in the British Prints category with a pair of tompot blennies. Trevor Rees came second with a pair of cuttlefish. Ken Sullivan came third with a seal portrait.

Alan James was the winner in the DIgital category with a colouful shot of jewel anemones. Trevor Rees came second with an image of a diver in a wreck and Joe Foxcroft came third with an image of a tompot blenny.

Cuttlefish Bill Hewitt 2nd On the Day - Macro	Corkwing wrasse Cathy Lewis 1st On the Day - Macro	Jewel anemones Hugh Miller 3rd On the Day - Macro

On the day the Macro category was won by Cathy Lewis with a Corkwing wrasse, beating Bill Hewitt's second place cuttlefish and Hugh Miller 's third place jewel anemones.

Breakwater David Peake 2nd On the Day - Wide-angle	Kelp David Peake 1st On the Day - Wide-angle	Diver looking over the side of a boat Paul Dawson 3rd On the Day - Wide-angle

Dave Peake took first and second place in the Wide-angle category with two very different but equally splendid shots of divers, beating Paul Dawson's kelp shot, who took third place.

Corkwing wrasse Peter Ladell 1st On the Day - Fish	Wrasse Anita Marshall 2nd On the Day - Fish	Tompot blenny Bob Davies 3rd On the Day - Fish

Peter Hewitt's Tom-pot blenny took first place in the Fish category beating Mike John's Ballan wrasse, which came second, and Tom Cowan's John Dory, which came third.

Anita Marshall took the most humorous shot on the day.

Trophies were awarded to the winners and personal awards to the first, second and third in each category by the Society's President, Brian Pitkin. The event set a record by finishing by 10.20 p.m., due in no small part to off-site processing and to an exceptional organising team!

The Society is grateful to all those members and their guests who helped to make the event such a success. First and foremost Gill McDonald, without whom the event would not have been the huge success it was. Gill was helped considerably by Martha Tressler, Anthony Holley, Jan Maloney and our digital wizard Alex Mustard.

BSoUP also extends its thanks to Alan James Photography, AP Valves, Greenaway Marine, Ocean Optics Ltd, and The Image Centre who each provided a trophy for the BSoUP's annual Splash-in competition.