View from the Naked Lady

This year I participated to the Kona Classic, a yearly underwater photography contest and art festival in Kona, Hawaii.

Scheduling this trip proved to be a bit of a challenge as I was on a business trip in Hamburg the week before the event took place. I traveled from San Francisco to London, spent the week-end there, then onward to Hamburg for the rest of the week before flying all the way back to Hawaii, with a stop-over in Franrkfurt and San Francisco. What a trip. Curiously, I was not jet lagged when I arrived in Hawaii. I did manage to get my time zone calculations wrong though and to book my San Francisco-Kona flight for 24 hours later than I intended. However, I was able to correct my itinerary once arrived in San Francisco.

I also took the gamble of traveling all the way from SFO to London, Hamburg and back with my big diving equipment case, but it turned out pretty well (thank you Debrilla Ratchford, inventor of the rolling suitcase).

Everyday of the week looked something like this:

• 7am: wake up
• 8 am pick up at hotel by dive operator
• 9:30 am: first dive, then lunch
• noon: second dive
• 3pm: return to the hotel
• 3:30pm: seminar on various topics: composition, lighting, shooting macro, shooting wide-angle, digital workflows, etc... by one of the "pros" on hand
• Spend the rest of the day reviewing images, and select one or two to try to make them better with Photosohp :-)

Punctuating the week were various dinners, sunset cruises, etc... I even got to see my first green flash, a rare meteorological phenomenon popularized by Jules Verne where a brillant flash of green light appears for a brief instant as the sun is setting. Unfortunately, I was not quick enough to capture it with my camera.

« Avez-vous quelquefois observé le soleil qui se couche sur un horizon de mer ? Oui ! sans doute. L'avez-vous suivi jusqu'au moment où, la partie supérieure de son disque effleurant la ligne d'eau, il va disparaître ? C'est très probable. Mais avez-vous remarqué le phénomène qui se produit à l'instant précis où l'astre radieux lance son dernier rayon, si le ciel, dégagé de brumes, est alors d'une pureté parfaite ? Non ! peut-être. Eh bien, la première fois que vous trouverez l'occasion, — elle se présente très rarement, — de faire cette observation, ce ne sera pas comme on pourrait le croire, un rayon rouge qui viendra frapper la rétine de votre œil, ce sera un rayon « vert », mais d'un vert merveilleux, d'un vert qu'aucun peintre ne peut obtenir sur sa palette, d'un vert dont la nature, ni dans la teinte si variée des végétaux, ni dans la couleur des mers les plus limpides, n'a jamais reproduit la nuance ! S'il y a du vert dans le Paradis, ce ne peut être que ce vert-là, qui est, sans doute, le vrai vert de l'Espérance ! »

Having just picked up underwater photography being able to learn from people who regularly produce "wow" pictures such as Marty Snyderman, David Fleetham, Ty Sawyer and Eric Cheng was a fantastic opportunity. And it didn't hurt that they were all incredibly nice and passionate guys. Most of the participants I got the chance to dive with were also really nice and laid back, with the exception of a couple of Hollywood celebrities, who were clearly coming from a different planet.

To my surprise, one of my pictures ended up placing 3rd place in the "Diver" category. Yeah!

I'm looking forward to next year, but I think I'm going to have to think about upgrading my hardware, because my little Olympus 7070 with no external strobe is starting to get in my way. And I thought that scuba was equipment-intensive. Pfft. It's nothing compared to underwater photography :-)