Goatfish & Diver Photograph Wins Blue O2 Competition

As you may have read in one of my earlier posts I won a weekly photo competition whilst diving in Egypt. The winners from all the weekly competition were then put into the final and I am really pleased to say that mine was selected by the Judges, Dr. Alex Mustard and James Dawson.

The prize includes a week onboard one of the BlueO2 live aboard boats on an itinerary of my choice .

More info can be found Here.

It will give me a great chance to get some more underwater shots as I did not get as many as I would have liked last trip due to catching the flu whilst I was on the boat :(

Happy New Year to you all

Hello to all of you and a Happy New Year.

With the golf season on a little break, I get the chance to indulge myself with some wildlife photography. A side project I am working on is getting some photographs together for my local wildlife trust for a book that should be out in a couple of years time. I thought it would be a good idea to get some shots that include the snow that has fallen over the last few days as we don't tend to get a lot of snowfall on the coast.

I shot this Goldfinch on a twig using my 400mm with a 1.4TC to give me 580mm effective length. I used one of my 1D MkIIn cameras as the 1.3 crop sensor allows for a little more magnification as compared to my full frame cameras. Shooting birds

this small I would love to have the canon 600mm f4 as it gives you more reach but patience is the best weapon in the nature photographers armory.

I was stationed in a hide and the birds were being attracted to a bird table laden with nuts and seeds, which I am sure the birds appreciated in these harsh conditions. Talking of harsh conditions, I only managed about an hour and a half sitting in the hide before retreating to the warmth of home.

LET Qualifying School

After a two weeks of rain and snow delays Caroline Masson of Germany won the 2009 qualifying school. The weather, once again, was not conducive to great photography but, none the less it was , as always, a tournament of 2 halves. We had elation from the girls who secured their playing rights for next season and the other side of the coin from those girls who failed to make the cut.

I have a break from professional golf now for a few months so back home for Christmas and New year :)

In-Kyung Kim Wins Dubai Ladies Masters

Korean In-Kyung Kim held on to win the Dubai Ladies Masters by 3 shots. The weather was a little disappointing this year so there was not really the chance to get any of the shots I was after. Still it was nice to get out of the cold winter for a week. :)

The wide fairways and general access to the course meant that I found the 1.4 xTC was a really useful addition to the 400mm lens, especially when trying to achieve the type shot seen in the previous entry.

Next I'm off to La Manga in southern Spain for the final event of the year, golf wise anyway, the Qualifying school for the 2010 season.

Omega Dubai Ladies Masters

The Dubai Ladies Masters finished on Saturday, which in itself is unusual, (tournaments usually finish on a Sunday). I was hoping to see the sun during the week there but the weather was against us. There was a sandstorm on the first day, a bit of sun on the second but the rest of the week was overcast with showers!!! According to the locals out there, it usually only rains a handful of times a year, so this was bad luck for us. Still the cloud cover did provide a rest from the strong shadows under golf caps and visors so I managed to get some good stock shots of players.

One thing I noticed was that the 400mm that I use for most of my golf shots, was lacking length. The fairways are quite wide at the Majilis course so you can be quite a distance away from some of the players. This is OK as you can pick and choose where you shoot, but I am not a great fan of harsh cropping. I think that possibly the 500mm F4 canon lenses is gives you more flexibility for some of the bigger courses as it allows you to be a little bit further away from the subject with the added bonus that it is a heck of a lot lighter, (about 2KG), than the 400mm f2.8 that I have. At least it gives me something to put on my christmas list, although at just under £5400 I am not sure Santa will stretch to that this year :)

Talking of Chirstmas, In-Kyung Kim of Korea (above) received an early Christmas present of € 70K when she won the tournament by a 2 shot margin from Michelle Wie and Maria Hjorth from Sweden. Not bad for a week's work.

Speaking of work, I am off to La Manga (Spain) on Thursday to cover the final qualifying school for the LET. Again I was hoping for some sun, but so far the first day of the first stage of qualifying has been cancelled due to terrible rain storms. I am also getting told that it is very cold there as well. I'll keep you posted.

Graduation Ceremony Photography

I've just returned from a graduation ceremony, where I spent the evening taking their formal graduation shots. It is a bit of a change from shooting sharks last week but that is one of my favourite parts of being a photographer, you can get a lot of variety in your work.

I use a simple portable set up for this sort of "half length" shot with 2 500W flash heads, that, even on half power, will let you shoot at 1/125 @ f9 - f11, ISO 100. The aperture lets you get enough depth of field on the subject whilst simultaneously blurring the background. I use a Lastolite background on a stand so I can carry the whole setup, plus camera bag from which ever car park I can get into, (It usually involves a walk of several hundred meters).

I'm off to Dubai on Monday for the Duabai Ladies Masters golf tournament, the last event on the Ladies European Tour's schedule. Dubai is somewhwere that I really enjoy shooting. In the last few years the building surrounding the Majilis Course have grown and it sometimes feels like you are on a golf course in the middle of a sea of skyscrapers. The heat at this time of year is also a bonus, especially given the weather that we have had in the England this last week.

Photo of Diver and Goatfish Wins Underwater Photo Contest.

Whilst out in Egypt I entered an underwater photographic competition with the photo on the left and was lucky enough to be selected as the winner by the judges. I took it on the first dive of the trip at Erg Abu Ramada, when I found a large school of Yellow Tail Goatfish (Mulloidichthys vanicolensis ). I asked the model to swim through the school so I could capture the image above.

Settings used: 1/80s f10 ISO200 @ 17mm, 2 Sea & Sea 110 alpha strobes set to 1/2 power to illuminate the fish.

Shark Photography.

I have just returned back from a week helping on the Longimanus Project. Carcharhinus longumanus, the Oceanic White Tip Shark (left) is an Oceanic wanderer that has seen heavy declines in numbers over recent years due to long-lining and the increased demand for shark fins. The project is currently recording the numbers of sharks and their range by collecting photographs and identifying individuals ad their locations over time. The project has been running in the Red Sea for a number of years and has a database containing over 500 sharks that have been sighted during tis time. for more info on the project click here: Longimanus Project.

Photographic Technique:

For shooting sharks, and any other marine life for that matter, there are a number of rules that will greatly enhance the quality of your photos.

Firstly there is the light and colour drop off caused by the water. The density of the water causes the red part of the spectrum to be filtered out of light in the first 5 meters and as your depth increases the colours decrease until you are left with dark blues and eventually black. To counteract this colour drop off, you can either manually white balance your camera with the surrounding area or use strobes to "paint" the colour back into the picture.

The second rule of photography is to get close to the subject then get closer again :). This is because water contains particulate matter that gets between the lens and the subject and generally degrades the quality of the image. The other reason for this advice is that many photographers take the shot with too little of the subject in the frame.

To shoot the photo above I was using a canon 5D with a 17-40mm f4 L lens and a B+W -4 diopter to correct the distortion caused by the dome port.

As the shark was too far a way for the strobes to light it, I manually white balanced the camera using my hand, as there was no reef / white card available. Camera settings: Top shot: 1/125s

f7.1 ISO 250 @ 40mm.

I have included the second shot to illustrate how close these sharks get, Here he was about 2 feet from the front of the dome port and the shark was getting frisky, you can make out a divers legs behind as he struggles to get out of the water into the zodiac :) Sadly the whole encounter only lasted less than a minute and It was the only dive I was able to do as I managed somehow to get a very bad cold and fever for a couple of days, which, sadly, put an end to my diving.

Carta Si Ladies Italian Open

Marianne Skarpnord won the Italian Ladies Open, the final European event of the season. She beat Laura Davies of England in a 3 hole playoff to lift her second trophy of the season. Afterwards Marianne, her caddie and boyfriend Petter, and I went out to dinner to celebrate in style with... a McDonalds LOL. Sometimes you are too tired to bother waiting for table service at a restaurant, that was our excuse anyway.

The next golfing stop is Dubai in December. But before that I am off to Egypt to try and find and photograph Oceanic Whitetip sharks, Charcharinus longimanus. I'll keep you posted :)

Milan For a Week

The Carta-Si Ladies Italian Open preview started with a trip to Damiani, one of the most prestigious jewelers in Milan, whose clients range from George Clooney to Brad Pit. Diana Luna of Italy, Beatriz Recari of Spain and Christina Kim of the USA spent the morning trying on necklaces, earrings and rings and surprisingly enough, throughly enjoyed the experience. Left is a picture of Beatriz wearing a diamond necklace and earrings worth a combined total of £550,000. As you can imagine, it was not difficult getting the girls to smile for the shots.