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First Lembeh vs Gulen Critter Shootout is underway

by adamhanlon

It is day 3 of the Critter Shootout in Lembeh. Today is invertebrate critters practice day, but the competition is ongoing as public voting is now live. If you have not already voted, please take a moment to choose your favorite nudibranch here.

Invert
The competitors may be getting a little loopy under the pressure.

Practice
But, they are definitely fully prepped to photograph invertebrates.

Dive guides
The experienced dive guides are the secret weapon out here for finding incredible invertebrates to photograph

Tobias

Abi

Tobias

Rinse bucket
After all the dives are done, the competitors eagerly await pulling the camera housings out of the rinse bucket to see what amazing images they’ve captured

Just a reminder, the voting for the first competition is still open for a few more hours. You can find the nudibranch images from Indonesia and Norway here.

Meanwhile in Norway….

Wetpixel’s Adam Hanlon got into Gulen Diver Resort very early on Monday morning. Team Gulen had a full day planned, refining and honing their skills for round 2 of the shootout.

Round 2’s category is invertebrates. Team advisor and local expert Christian Skauge briefed the team in the resort’s dining room on where and how to find suitable subjects, followed by Keri Wilk who showed the team some creative techniques for use when shooting invertebrates.

The team then all headed off to put the advice into practice. Gulen has a house reef that is accessible straight off the jetty 20 paces from the resort’s buildings.

This is full of fascinating temperate water critters, including some really cool subjects for the next round. Lembeh Resort’s (normally) resident marine biologist Dimpy Jacobs was in the water and soon resumed her normal role of pointing out fantastic subjects for the contestants to shoot.

Dimpy has flown across especially for the event and has been taught to use a drysuit by the team at Gulen just prior to the shootout.

Diving in 8°C water is a big change from her normal job!

I was shooting wide angle in order to catch the contestants in action, but it was frustrating to swim over lots of amazing macro opportunities!

Team Gulen were in full swing though:

The surface interval were full of “chimping” as people shared their images:

Gulen team leader Keri Wilk and Christian Skauge

We also took a team picture:

Lars Kirkegaard getting everyone orgaized for the picture….

We did three great dives, with everyone catching some stunning images:

All too soon, we had to come up…

Stop Press

The results of the first stage of the contest have now been announced. The challenge was to capture images of nudibranchs

Gulen took first place, with the winning image being shot by Belgian Luc Rooman. The images from both resorts are stunning, if you haven’t checked them out yet, you really should!

Team Gulen’s leader, Keri Wilk was so happy he decided to dive in for joy!

via GIPHY

. Introduction to the shootout.
2. Day 1: reports.
3. Day 2: Nudibranch competition day.
4. Day 3: Invertebrate practice day.
5. Nudibranch results.
6. Day 4: Invertebrate competition day.
7. Day 5: Fish practice day
8. Invertebrate results.

There is more Wetpixel coverage from Lembeh and Gulen.