When the June issue of National Geographic hits newsstands in a few days, readers will have a deeper view of James Cameron. At first glance the cover shot appears to be a standard underwater portrait. But the “Behind the Cover” story sheds some light on how it was captured.
Underwater photographer Bryant Austin specializes in life-size printed images of whales and has just released his first book, “Beautiful Whale.” Austin was recently interviewed on Forum with Michael Krasny.
13-year old Kyle Kelleher has produced a short claymation video to help bring awareness about the controversial delicacy of shark fin soup.
Whilst announcing a redesign of Flickr, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer claimed that the company wants “to make Flickr awesome again”. She went on to say that: “There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro today because [with so many people taking photographs] there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore,” although she acknowledged that there are photographers with “different skill levels”.
TechCrunch has published an article about Google’s ongoing project to add “Street View” style imagery from the underwater realm. Google’s recent I/O conference included a presentation from the Catlin Seaview Survey team, and details have been made public of how the team’s imaging scooters create the underwater mapping.
Shark Angels has launched a charity auction to raise funds for its conservation initiatives. The sale, which runs through until 11 June, includes diving trips, celebrity attendances at film premieres and a fashion shoot.
Businessman Sir Richard Branson hosted a conservation meeting of nine Caribbean governments last weekend. Held at the eco resort on Necker Island, the group discussed the “Caribbean Challenge”, which calls for special protected zones along at least 20 per cent of the region’s coasts by 2020. In addition, Branson said: “About 1.5m sharks and rays a week are killed for the Chinese fin and medicinal market. It is the biggest mass killing of any genus. The Caribbean leader here want to set an example by banning shark fishing.”
The Smithsonian Collage of Arts and Sciences blog has published a photographic study of sea butterflies or pteropods by zoologist Karen Osborne. She and her fellow researchers are capturing the animals by hand while on scuba in the Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Mexico and California and then bringing them back to the research ship and photographing them in a shallow tank of clear water.
Ikelite has launched its Smart Housing for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds camera. This represents a departure for the company as it is its first housing for a mirrorless or EVIL camera. The housing is immediately recognizable as an Ikelite and shares the TTL flash control and polycarbonate design of its siblings, but also moves the video and AF lock controls onto the side of the housing for thumb activation.
Wetpixel Editor Adam Hanlon reviews the Underwater Kinetics Aqualite eLED video lights. Although light, compact and well made, he finds that the light’s output means that they may be of limited use, especially with POV cams like the GoPro and Sony AS-15 Actioncam.