Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Report from Visions In The Sea 2009

Wetpixel member Tim Moran (timmoranuk) reports from the 12th Visions In The Sea Conference, which this year moved from London to be held for the first time in Manchester, UK. The speakers at this year’s event included Cathy Church, Martin Edge, Charles Hood, Alex Mustard and Peter Scoones.

Tim’s report gives a great flavour for this unique event which consists entirely of talks designed to help them get their own stunning images. The event also raised £2000 for the Shark Trust and showcased an international underwater photography competition. Several Wetpixel members were amongst the winners…

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Photoshop CS4 DVD for the Underwater Photographer

Doug and Lorenza Sloss announce their latest easy to follow instructional video Photoshop CS4 for the Underwater Photographer.

With 10 hours of content, real life examples, this is a guide to the correct way of using Photoshop CS4 for correcting and manipulating the underwater photographs. The cost is $99 plus shipping.

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Winners from Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-Marine, 2009

Congratulations to all the winners in the Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-Marine, 2009. Highlights include Palm D’Or in the professional films going to the BBC’s Nature’s Great Events The Great Tide, Palm D’Or in the non-professional films being awarded to Sébastien Hiebot for his film on Raja Ampat.

In still photography the Plongeur D’Or in the prestigious portfolios went to Adrianno Morettin, Dennis Vandermeersch won the Plongeur D’Or in the colour prints and Keri Wilk won the Plongeur D’Or in the black and white prints. The important World Prize for the best book of underwater photography went to Michael Aw for Heart Of The Ocean.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Buy two anti-shark finning billboards in China for $100

Shark Savers and WildAid are collaborating on a multi-media campaign in China targeting the consumers of shark fin soup. For $100 you can fund a “Say ‘no’ to shark fin soup” bus stop billboard featuring basketball star Yao Ming, one of China’s most popular and influential citizens. For a limited time, a sponsor of Shark Savers is matching donations, so your $100 gets TWO billboards put up.

This campaign targets the largest consumers of shark fin via a local hero’s influence – fighting from the inside is the only effective way to stop shark finning in the long term.

Last year, WildAid had 200 billboards in Beijing for 3 months. In a survey, 19% of Beijingers responding remembered having seen the boards and 82% of those people said they would stop or reduce their consumption of shark fin soup. Imagine the power of 1000 billboards for an entire year. This campaign works and your billboard will have an impact!

In general, I am cynical about Western efforts to stop shark finning, but this campaign really caught my eye, and I’ve used my wallet to voice support. For $100, I just sponsored two billboards.

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Wetpixel Oxfam Asia Pacific Appeal Fund Charity Drive

The Oxfam Asia Pacific Appeal fund has been chosen as the beneficiary of Wetpixel’s first official charity drive. The various natural disasters in the region has taken thousands of lives and made millions homeless. This charity drive is designed to help those in the region get back on their feet by providing food, shelter and later infrastructural repairs.

Nine photographs were generously donated by photographers who feel the need to help those affected by natural disaster. Wetpixel is selling prints of these photographs until January 15, 2010. All proceeds will be donated to Oxfam. More information about the charity drive can be found at http://wetpixel.com/oxfam

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

UnderwaterChannel.tv covers DEMA 2009

The folks over at the Underwater Channel have posted video coverage of DEMA 2009 in 4 parts. Check it out – they cover a lot more than just underwater photography and videography (the focus of the Wetpixel coverage). Wetpixel’s booth and website are featured in part 2!

Underwater Channel coverage of DEMA 2009: [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4]

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Paul Nicklen’s leopard seal story, Antarctica

Check out this short video interview of Paul Nicklen, who describes a four-day encounter with a large leopard seal in Antarctica. A leopard seal befriends Paul and presents penguins to him, presumably trying to feed what it thinks is a truly incompetent predator. The story is an incredible one—truly the once-in-a-lifetime encounter that every serious wildlife photographer hopes to have one day.

Friday, November 13th, 2009

A Conversation With Fotosub Photographers

Wetpixel’s Alex Mustard continues his new series of interview based articles on the techniques of underwater photography with A Conversation with Spanish Fotosub Photographers David Barrio, Carlos Villoch, Carlos Suarez and Arturo Boyra, who he caught up with at Fotosub Gran Canaria - Costa Mogan.

In the interview the photographers discuss the secrets of success in these unique Fotosub events and talk in detail about working with models and wide angle lighting techniques.

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Oops, we forgot the Seacam D300s housing

At DEMA last week, we were so distracted by the realization that the Canon 1D Mark IV fits into existing 1D Mk III housings that we forgot to mention that Seacam had on display a brand new housing for the Nikon D300s digital SLR. We’ve added products shots of the Seacam D300s housing into the Seacam entry in our DEMA show coverage (Day 2, page 4). Click through and scroll down to see the new photos.

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice Awards 2009

Many congratulations to Wetpixel member Yeang Ch’ng for winning the Oceans Category in the prestigious Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice Awards 2009. The category winners and selected highly honoured images are now featured in a large format print exhibition in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. starts today and runs until 2nd January.

Yeang’s winning picture is of a saltwater crocodile taken in Papua New Guinea. A full list of runner up and commended images will be published soon in a special edition of Nature’s Best Magazine, we’ve heard there are plenty more Wetpixel members among the names.

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