PhotoFriday – ‘Metropolis’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Metropolis’

For this weeks theme I was in half a mind to use a photo of a busy reef scene, however when I looked up on wikipedia, the definition of a metropolis is most certainly only cites for people…. boo! Not to be disheartened, I get to show you three photos from metropolis around the world that I have loved. Firstly, above, Singapore, photographed at night from Marina Bay. Next up is New York and last but certainly not least is my fair city, London.

You can see more non-underwater travel photo galleries here.

If you want to see my underwater photos from various places then check out the galleries in my Reef Beasties Gallery. Or my best from 2012 here.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Metropolis’ here.

PS: I’m currently selling my 60mm/D300 underwater macro set-up. Click here for more details & the full list of equipment for sale or email me at scubasuzy-sellingnikongear@yahoo.co.uk. Thanks for supporting my work!

Nikon & Subal Gear for Sale

I’m moving systems so I’m selling all my Nikon & Subal Gear (and my iPhone 4). Please let me know if you’re interested in any of the following and feel free to share this post with your friends who might be interested (especially if they can get to London, UK because then we’ll all save on P&P)!

- Tokina 11-16mm: Nikon mount (boxed with instructions & lens hood) £350
- Nikon 18-200mm VR (boxed with instructions & lens hood) £400
- Nikon 80-400mm VR (boxed with instructions, carry case & lens hood) £700
- Nikon 105mm VR Macro lens (boxed with instructions and lens hood) £550
- Lee filters kits (polariser & ring, 72mm ring, 77mm ring & Starter Kit) £450 £245
- Tripod (Manfrotto ball head, gitzo legs) £150

- Whole Subal Macro underwater set up (you’d just need to acquire strobes): £2500

  • Subal Housing Type 3 for D300
  • Nikon D300 (boxed with instructions & leads, with 2 batteries & charger )
  • 60mm type 3 port
  • Nikon 60mm lens (boxed)

· Dual sync cord £150

· SOLD: Subal FE dome £470 + extention £100 + subal zoom gear £50
· SOLD: + tokina 10-17 FE lens £350
· SOLD: 105 port with focus knob £375

- SOLD:iPhone 4, Unlocked, 32GB, boxed £200
- SOLD: Nikon D300 body (boxed with 2 batteries & charger, & wired remote shutter) £300
- SOLD: Nikon D70 body & Nikon 18-70mm kit lens (unboxed with 1 battery & charger and lens hood) £200
- SOLD: Nikon 70-300mm (unboxed with lens hood) £50

I’ve set up the following temporary email for this so please share with anyone you’ll think who’ll be interested.
scubasuzy-sellingnikongear@yahoo.co.uk

All prices with extra post & packing unless I meet up with you.

Photos of Gear (and I have to thank Mike for taking all these for me)!

PhotoFriday – ‘Pattern’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Pattern’

At the end of last year I finished my second chapter for photography degree module one. One of the categories was pattern so I had great fun both in the water in Bali and wandering around London finding patterns.

If you want to see more of my underwater photos from various places then check out the galleries in my Reef Beasties Gallery. Or my best from 2012 here.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Pattern’ here.

Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year – review

Paul Nicklen / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

Last Friday we made our annual pilgrimage to the Natural History Museum to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. We have a tradition to go to one of the great “late events” to see the exhibition and enjoy a nice glass of wine after work on a friday every year. This year we saw the exhibition a little earlier than usual which might explain why it was so busy. The evening had completely sold out. I prefer to see it when its slightly less busy but that didnt make the photographs any less spectacular, just harder to get to.

Please click on the images in this post to show more information about each, these are copyright the artists and Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012 so please don’t reuse without their permission.

Paul Nicklen / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

In previous years I’ve often been disappointed with the underwater section, with maybe one of two outstanding images but the rest – and often the winners – being somehow less good than I know the images out there by some underwater photographers to be. However, not the case this year. The excellent Paul Nicklen took overall winner of the whole shebang and well deserved it was too. I’ve long been a fan (if you dont have his book on polar bears, you should hot foot it over to amazon now). I couldn’t quite make up my mind whether I liked the winner (with the many penguins, shown above at the top of the post) or the runner up in the underwater category (with the single penguin streaming to the surface – not shown here) better, but they were both amazing. He also took winner for the birds behaviour category with these cute little penguins springing into view (above).

And a huge well done to all the other underwater photographers who made the list for making the show for me! :) This one by Claudio Gazzaroli was specially commended and taken in the Grand Cayman sandbar which I know well, although I’ve never been there at evening time.

Claudio Gazzaroli / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

I was also very pleased to see more and more underwater photographs creeping into the other categories. This photo by Luciano Candisani won the Behaviour: Cold-Blooded Animals category.

Luciano Candisani / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

Also in that category was a close up of a jawfish brooding his eggs in his mouth by Steven Kovacs.

As usual for this competition there was a strong sustainability theme (although not as strong as last years). These photographs from the special award category “The world in ours hands” show the seedier side of humanity and our impact on the natural world and are quite upsetting ….

Huang-Ju Chen / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

Paul Hilton / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

Hopefully photographs such as those will raise even more awareness about the horrors of captive dolphin shows and perhaps even bring and end to sharks-fin soup – before we bring an end to sharks for good.

There seemed to be a lot of polar bears in the show (although none from Paul Nicklen that I saw). This one by Anna Henly won the “The world in ours hands” category.

Anna Henly / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

I also enjoyed the Animal portraits category – this is often the best in the show. I liked the winning crocodile well enough but this little guy made me laugh so I had to feature him here (as runner up). It seems that I’m not the only one to think so too as he seemed to be the face of the exhibition:

John E Marriott / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

And last but not least, the landscape section blew me away again this year…

Vladimir Medvedev / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

Thilo Bubek / Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012

I hope you enjoyed my little review. Thanks to the guys who gave me access to the press pack to use these amazing images with permission. You can see an online preview of the show here, but I strongly urge you to get down there and visit the exhibition in person.

[Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year is owned by the Natural History Museum and
BBC Worldwide]

Best Photos 2010

Once again its that time of year when I look back and reflect on my photography throughout the year. I’ve put them into a gallery on pbase here:

http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/best2010

I’ve only managed to pick just under 80 this year which isnt a great sign dispite having some great opportunites. This year we’ve been underwater in Grand Cayman Island and the North Red Sea (Egypt). Around the UK we’ve tripped to Dorset , Essex and been out in London down by the Eye at night. I tried my hand at photographing Shirleys Garden (for which she won Silver in the local council garden awards). And as per normal I’ve been playing with macro around the house and garden. The one thing I’ve really enjoyed this year is getting to grips with my iphone 4, although I think it makes me lazy because I dont want to lug my huge DSLR out now but more creative because I take more photos than I used to. That being said cheated this year and added a new category – top 10 iphone photos.

I had to go back in time to read this post I wrote over a year ago about choosing your best photos because I did a post as recently as September for my favourite shots of the year so I wanted this post to reflect my best (if at all possible).

Top 10 photos:

#- In Cayman at the sandbar we found this shell and I love how it brings colour against the bland sand

#- I got to help with Alex when he was playing with his off camera strobe inside the Ghannis D wreck in the Red Sea and enjoyed it so much I got one of my very own made. I’m looking forward to trying this technique out more next year.

#- I think Sally here (Sally the Sailfin) was a highlight of our Cayman trip, we didnt get to do much macro but all my personal favs were macro as they usually are ;)

#- I found this little tiny crab under the boat in a tiny piece of dead looking coral. One of his brothers actually atached himself to my lanyard (which was resting on the seabed) and ended up back on the dive deck. I rescued him though and put him back in the sea.

#- Mike & I dont often see sharks so to see this grey reef shark in Cayman was a treat for us. I had a 60mm lens on because the sharks dont come too close. I like the graphic almost pencil drawn feel to my post processing of this one.

#- Cardinal fish males brood their fertilized eggs in their mouths to protect them while they incubate. It was facinating watching him, every moment or so he would open his mouth to allow fresh water to oxygenate the eggs.

#- Stingray sandbar was my fav dive in Cayman and it isnt even a dive. Its a hold breath & sink sort of affair in waist high water :)

#- Secretary blennys are just too cute. They hole up in the coral and peek out.

#- When we go to the Red Sea I love the anthias, they bring so much colour to the reef and look great orange against blue

#- In Cayman there were some little caves with glass fish in them that would swirl around in the beams of sunlight coming though the ceilings.

Top 10 iphone photos:

Alexs leaving do (panorama stitched on the iphone):

Dorset fields on a summers day:

Cheddar Gorge:

Butterflies in my nans garden:

Q models some excellent 3D specs in the car:

my first snowman:

C & Q in leaky hamster balls:

Nans flowers:

Dorset mobile phone HDR (before HDR was on the iphone4 automatically):

Snowy garden:

Honorable Mentions:

land photos: click them for larger versions:

#- Theres a famous quote (I forget who by but you can google it) about painting with light. Thats what attracts me to the london eye photo. And I enjoyed testing out HDR at the henge

#- this year I really enjoyed playing with the macro lens in the garden

#- ever wondered what its like to live in a dandelion? Or to see a toadstool upclose?

PhotoFriday – ‘Reflect’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Reflect’

Click image to go to see alternate sizes.

With all the hoo-hah of the Popes visit in London at the moment I thought this photo would fit the theme nicely.

Check out other photos in my Misc Macro Gallery.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Reflect’ here.

Leigh Art Trail on until Sunday

I had the opportunity to visit the Leigh-on-sea Art Trail last night. It’s on until this Sunday so if you are in the area or want to take the train out of London somewhere nice this weekend then it’s worth considering…

Leigh-on-sea is a lovely little fishing town about 35-45mins out on the train from London. It was a lovely sunny evening last night and the walk around the trail (those artists who were open late anyway) and back along the sea front to the station was lovely in the warm sunshine.

All the artists we met were extremely friendly and talented (and most provide free wine). We didn’t get to see all the Artists but of those we did my favourites were the potter Richard Baxter, the illustrator Dominic Mylroie and the mosaic guy Paul Siggins.

I collected business cards of all the artists I saw on the way around, pictured here:

Art Trail Biz Cards

Some artists are open late again tonight and the event is on until Sunday. Check out the official site

http://www.leigharttrail.co.uk/

that has a map of the trail and a bio on all the artists. There’s also a blog:  http://leigharttrail.blogspot.com/

Happy Art Hunting!

Best Photos 2009

Well again I’ve really enjoyed the agonizing process of choosing my top photos from the year. I’ve picked 100 photos and put them in a gallery here:

http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/best2009

This year I found many photos to choose from that I liked so I must be getting better at this photography malarkey (I hope you agree).  Again, we had a great year photo-opportunity-wise, we went to Raja Ampat (Indonesia) & the Red Sea (Egypt). We had some murder mayhem at the start of the year and We wandered around London experimenting with IR (failed) and HDR (better) techniques. The now closed Shunt Lounge at London Bridge provided some fun challenges too. And of course it wouldn’t be a photography year for me without playing with a bit of macro in the flat.

I tried to be good this year and only pick the best (and not just favourite – see my blog post here about choosing) but I think I failed and just chose what I liked most anyway ;)

So here are my top ten of 2009 (click them to see them larger):

#10 Angel in HDR. OK, we just moved out of London last week… I’ll admit it, I’m going to miss Angel. Probably not one of my best photos of the year but I wanted to mark the passing into our new life in 2010…

#9 Snapper explosion from Red Sea. See the full trip gallery here.

#8 James’ Mysterious device. See the full series here.

#7 Little fishy. Also from the red sea. These little guys are very quick but very graceful. I wanted to get a photo that showed that and I think this does.

#6 Mike & Suzy fish. Tiny glass fish blown into a glass fish bowl. Amazing item from Italy and I found it difficult to light.

#5 Fish tails. I loved the pattern they made. I’d have liked to get more in but the school was not really big enough.

#4 Leaf reflection. The Raja Ampat Mangroves were by far & away my fav experience this year! See the full gallery here

#3 Teeny Tiny bobtail squid. See Raja Ampat (not Mangroves) Underwater gallery here. This was a challenge & a 1/2! Night dive. Heavy lens & torch I could hardly hold up. Bobtail squid I could hardly see he was so small! Those white rocks in the photo are grains of sand & shell.

#2 Nemo. You know I cannot resist! I like the yellow he was on …

#1 360 degrees of paradise! Bit of a dodgy handheld panorama but it came out well …. click it to see a much larger size:

EDIT: a few people contacted me wanting to know why this wasnt on the list… so I thought I’d add it here as an honorable mention…

Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2009 – Free exhibition

Oh this exhibition looks so cool! It starts today and its FREE! :) The Digital Camera Photographer of the Year competition (organised by Future Publishing) group is hosted in the Mall galleries in London (off Trafalgar Sq so you can go and visit the queen just up the road while you are there). It’s a pity it’s not on longer (since I wont be able to get there and see them in person before the 13th when it ends).

The competition features creativity from photographers of all levels from amateur to professional, from a variety of categories:

•          “This is Britain” sponsored by: SkyArts
•          “World in Motion” sponsored by: Telegraph.co.uk
•          “Man-made”
•          “Planet Earth” sponsored by Photoradar.com
•          “Destination Everywhere”
•          “Fashion”
•          “Landscapes” sponsored by: Epson
•          “People and Portraits”
•          “Black and White”
•          “Digital Vision”

With Jessops as the official partner and in association with the Royal Photographic Society, the competition, now in its sixth year has once again attracted entrants from across the globe. Obviously its the “Planet Earth” category that I’m the most interested in… Here are some of my favourites

Overall Winner and Planet Earth Winner: Partners –  Bragi J. Ingibergsson, Iceland



Planet Earth 3rd Place: My Journey - Bayu Husodo, Indonesia


Landscape Winner: Abraham Lake Ice – Chip Phillips, United States



Peoples Portraits 3rd Place: Fearless – Janet Shui Kee Yim, Hong Kong



Peoples Portraits Winner: Dikke Dennis – Thomas van Beek, The Netherlands


World in motion Winner: The Pacu Jawi (cow’s race) – Muhammad Fadli, Indonesia

Digital Vision Winner: How Mountains Are Made – Sabina Dimitriu, Romania


Official info…

Digital Camera Photographer of the Year 2009 – Free exhibition
Wednesday 9th December to Sunday 13th December
Mall Galleries, The Mall (near Trafalgar Sq)
For directions: http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk
£FREE 10am-5pm
For more information visit: www.photoradar.com

The lovely folks at Future Publishing allowed me to publish these images here, please respect the copyright of the photographers mentioned and don’t use their work for anything other than promoting this exhibition.