BSoUP annual Splash-In and print competition
July 5th 2003

Each year, many underwater photographers, most of whom are members of the British Society of Underwater Photographers, make their annual pilgrimage to the "Mount Batten Centre" in Plymouth to compete in both their 'On the Day' slide film competition and a very interesting print competition that admirably fills the time span between exposing your 'On the day' film and waiting for E6 processing to be completed.

The print competition this year consisted of two categories Over Seas and British with a total number of three print entries per person at A4 size to including any mounting.

This year Alan James decided to concentrate his three entries in the British category with digital images produced with a Nikon D100 and a range of Nikon lenses during the last few months. All printing was completed on our shops standard Epson 1290 printer using Epson inks and Premium glossy photo paper.

Prints were considered according to their competition appeal to include either colour, impact, the capturing of
Dramatic action or appealing marine life behaviour. A selection of ten A4 prints were selected and subjected to critical cropping, before mounting and displaying on an exhibition panel so as to compete with each other for a final selection of three.

Digital delight !!!

The outcome of many hours of British diving and critical print selection has paid its rewards !

The results of the British print competition are as follows :

In third place with 43 points was Alan's close focus wide angle print of a male Cuckoo Wrasse taken at Logan's rock on the 6th June on a Bristol Underwater Photography Group weekend with hard boat skipper Bill Bowen out of Penzance. The shot was taken using a Nikon AFD 20mm lens set to F16 with a shutter speed of 160th and a pair of Sea & Sea YS90DX

In second place with 53 points was Alan's portrait of an awesome feeding Basking Shark, taken using natural light at f4 and 160th and ISO 400 on a Nikon AFD 16mm fisheye lens while snorkelling from a rib provided by Gary Fox of Dive Action at St Keverne on the Lizard in Cornwall. This image was captured late on the evening of the 14th June.

The distinction of first place with 60 points went to one of Alan's dramatic fighting male Cuttlefish pictures, taken at Babbacombe on the 8th and 9th May during which Alan spent eleven hours working with the Nikon 16mm fisheye lens at various apertures and shutter speeds while using a pair of Sea & Sea YS90DX flashguns.

A great digital result indeed !!!

The inevitable late night presentation of trophies was made by the BSOUP President Brian Pitkin before a very tired but social band of enthusiastic underwater photographers, Brian, a hard working and long serving committee member told Alan that he believed this was the first time that a single photographer had taken all three places in the British print Category.