Trials and Tribulations (of a Splash-In)

Runner up in the Open Close Up Category by Nick Robertson-Brown

Each year, in the UK, there are at least 4 Splash-In competitions that we look at entering. A splash-in competition is one where you enter images taken on the day. There are competitions in St Abbs, Plymouth, Lundy and North Wales. All the underwater photographers have the same weather and sea conditions to deal with, so you should get an even playing field to test you skills against the others that have entered. They are tough! More often than not, the weather is terrible and you can measure the visibility in cm!

Caroline's shot of a shanny on a pier leg at Trefor

This year, due to the house and business move as well as other diving commitments, we have only managed to compete in one such competition. The NUPG splash-in was held around the coastline of North Wales a couple of weeks ago. The sun was shining, and whilst some of the dive sites were blown out, Trefor Pier was flat calm, with fantastic photography conditions. We had agreed to meet up with a few others who were entering the competition - and perhaps we should not have done! Keep the best dives site to yourself? Or share your plans with others? That is the question! In total, 6 of us were diving the same dive site, but with differing ideas of the shots we wanted to walk away with.

The winner and runner-up in both Macro and SLR categories were from this one dive, when the photographers had the whole of Anglesey and North Wales to choose from. Nick managed runner-up in both categories. A solid performance. Brett and John won a category each - well done! The thing about splash-in competitions that bothers me is not the diving and competing on the one day - I love that! it is the having to select the images to enter under such time pressure. I like to take my time, selecting a range of images, edit them a bit, look through them again, eve get them printed and spread out on our big table. But once you have dived, downloaded to your PC, you only have time to drive to the competition location and hand in the first decent image you find. I did not even get time to shower! And I was hosting the evening!

Caroline's atmospheric shot of the sunbeams hitting the pier

Perhaps this style of competition is not for me. But I will still keep going to as many as I can. I had the best day diving in the UK that one could wish for. We had the wonderful company of some great underwater photographers, superb conditions (I even got a sun tan), and the wildlife and landscape would have inspired any underwater photographer. So maybe it is not all about the winning after all. 

Nick also got runner-up in the Open Wide Angle category with the shot of Caroline looking at a shanny

For more information about the NUPG Splash-In and to see the images that won please click here.

Paralympic Athletes

It has been an amazing summer of sport for which the British people, and all the competitors, should be proud. There have been whoops, cheers and tears in almost every lounge in the land, as our athletes in the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics shone. Last year, we were lucky enough to have been asked to take a promotional shot for the Paralympic Games and got the chance to meet and work with 3 of our Paralympic athletes in the pool.

Richard Whitehead (@marathonchamp) is an amazing character. He holds the records in the marathon and 200m (which you cannot say about Usain Bolt!) Richard stormed to the gold medal on Saturday in the 200m. He still has the 100m to come, but was not allowed to compete in the marathon event due to the Paralympic marathon rules.

Liz Johnson won gold in Beijing in 2008 in tragic circumstances, having just heard that her mother had died, days before she was to compete. She will swim again on Wednesday to try to retain her title. Liz was a dream to photograph in the pool, as she is so comfortable in the water.

Simon Munn is a Paralympic legend. This games is his 6th in the wheelchair basketball team. In order to get the image we wanted, we needed to sink a spare wheelchair to the bottom of the pool and also fill the basketball with water so that it would not keep floating to the surface.

We had a great team of assistants with us, providing essential medical backup, surface support and safety divers. Each diver had an athlete to look after underwater, to make sure they were comfortable and could breathe from scuba if required. To get all 3 athletes in the shot was a challenge, but we succeeded in the end.

It is not often that we get the chance to thank, in public, those that give us a hand at events like these. So Alex, Gareth, Andy and Tom - you made it happen - thanks! We did this shoot at the Manchester Aquatics Centre last year, and if you would like to see a short video on how we did it - then just click on this link to see the video that Alex made on the day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK1snZMd-m0

Now the London Paralympics are half way through, we have had a lot of interest from the press. The Sun used an image of all 3 athletes as the front cover for their Paralympic Supplement.

It was a privilege to work with these three heroes. We wish them luck for the rest of these games and for all their endeavours in the future.