I’m taking over @WeRPhotography on twitter for a week

As some of you may know I go by @scuba_suzy on twitter. I tweet mainly about photography and scuba related things with my 140 characters. This week from midnight tonight I’ll be taking over the curated account @WeRPhotography.

So what is a curated account then? Well, essentially its an account that is run by different people. In the case of @WeRPhotography it features a different photographer /photography enthusiast each week to tweet about themselves, their work, their interests, basically anything they like. There are a few guidelines though. My fave of which is tweeting to ask Leonard Nimoy to take over for a week, yes Mr Spock is a photographer of naked ladies – who knew?! Here’s the introduction to the @WeRPhotography account project, brainchild of @JustJimWillDo which explains the whole thing in more detail. And the reason why I’m involved? Well as part of the process of taking over for a week Jim does a little interview with you and on week 6, Rebecca Jackrel recommended me as one of the people she’d like to see take part. So thanks Rebecca, thanks Jim, this looks like its going to be fun

Harlem Shake Underwater Edition

of all the silly Harlem Shake videos I’ve seen this was the first one I saw and its still the best one …

ps. Dont forget I need you guys to help me sell all my Nikon stuff, here’s the list if you’re interested and I’ll be updating it as things get sold off.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! I’d like to thanks all my friends, family and visitors to this blog for being so supportive.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog….

Apparently, 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 8,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.

I’d like to thanks Mark Graf, Poul Brix and Mike Toye for being my top commenters in 2012.

My top visited post for last year was Best Photos 2011 so perhaps my Best Photos 2012 will be this years winner we’ll have to see!

Right, now back to the Champers! Have a Happy New Year!

Scuba Sunday interview by Dive Mistress

Dive Mistress Tara does a Scuba Sunday Interview feature with scuba divers around the world. This Sunday she interveiwed me…

See the interview here: http://www.divemistress.net/2012/suzys-scuba-sunday-v14/

Best Photos 2012

As in previous years it is time to review and select my best/favourite photos of 2012. I always really enjoy looking back over all the posts and pictures I’ve made throughout the year and reflecting upon how fortunate I am to go to such great places and have such supportive people in my life. With no further ado, and in no particular order, here are this years top ten (click each for larger version on pbase)….

‘Taj Mahal’ Cenote with Eleo. While we were in Mexico we popped down the coast to see the amazing underwater caves called “Cenotes”. When the sun shines through the holes in the jungle surface these caves are simply magical. I did several blog posts on them because each of them have different characteristics.

Cardinal and friends. I liked this one because even though its taken in the ocean it gives an aquarium vibe. Diving on a tropical reef is so often like being on the inside of a giant aquarium I like that when I capture it in my photos. I got quite a lot I was please with from Bali.

Operatic Nemo. This little guy looked like he was singing an aria for me (in deep baritone). I also love him because he won me the end of trip competition in Bali.

Fish are friends not food. The amazing thing about whalesharks is what they eat. The largest fish in the sea eats the smallest thing, plankton. I liked this photo above the other more traditional mouth open whaleshark feeding shots because of the little remora fish swimming for all his worth to try and get out of the whalesharks mouth. Remora fish usually hook onto other sea creatures for a free ride so this scene amused me even though the little fish is in no danger.

London Triangles. This year I started a new photography degree course (and a new blog to go with it). I’ve had great fun trying to bend the exercises into my photographic areas of interest. This one was from an exercise on triangles and patterns. Its taken looking up into a building on the south bank.

Singapore skyline. We stopped over in Singapore for a few nights on our way to Cambodia and I indulged in my joy of panoramas with this one at night take from Marina Bay.

Duomo. We went on a city break with a friend of ours to Florence. Its long been on my ‘must see’ list of places to go and it didn’t disappoint. As with many beautiful cities, florence has been photographed millions of times. I really liked this view of the Duomo in the early morning. Its one of the only times to get near it when there are no people but as you can see there are still cars zipping by. For me it infuses old and new.

Contrasts Assignment. I had a lot of fun creating the lighting for this assignment with some desk lamps and tracing paper. You can see the whole assignment here.

Decorator crab. This little crab knows a thing or two about camouflage. He’s actually got live corals living on his shell to enable him to blend in more easily with the reef. I found him while searching for triangles for my second assignment.

Giant spotty fish. I like this whaleshark photo as it shows off his spots. As tradition dictated we could only refer to them as ‘giant spotty fish’ until we’d seen one in case we jinxed the trip.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Since choosing just ten is very hard its became tradition for me to briefly mention the spill over … (click for larger):

I hope you enjoyed reviewing my images of the year with me. If you’d like to see more I’ve put my fav 100 of 2012 here. Merry Christmas & Happy new year everyone!

More Bali Photos posted….

Over the weekend I finished off processing my Bali photographs and posted on my photography degree blog.

This post is full of the images that didnt make it into the assignment (elements of design) – this is just a small screen grab :

Assignment two – Draft Images.

And this post is the actual assignment post (again just a small screen grab of part of the post):

Assignment two – Elements of design.

Please check them out and see what you think

Time for something new

As you can see I changed my blog theme. After many years of Contempt I’m now moving to something fishy.

And as you can see its that time of year again – WordPress have switched on the snow! If you dont want to see snow on any of the wordpress snow enabled websites you can switch it off in your settings.

Instagram web profile

Finally, after ages of phone only access, instagram have developed a web profile page. Find mine here:  http://instagram.com/scuba_suzy/

Podcasts I love

I love the Instacast app on the iPhone (I think they have it for android too now). It’s revolutionised my Podcast watching. I’m not going to get into a long rant about why I dislike iTunes, suffice it to say that any app that means I have to spend less time using it is excellent! With Instacast you can cache the episodes and watch them offline without plugging your iPhone into iTunes. I think pocketcast does the same but I have tried that.

Most of the podcasts I’m subscribed to are photography related. I’m sure there’s many good audio podcasts about photography but I find them a bit pointless. Photography is a visual medium so only video podcasts or enhanced (with pictures) podcasts hold my attention.

Here are the podcasts that I love:

Chase Jarvis Photography:
Chase makes cool behind the scenes videos of the various shoots & events that he does. He & his team also make videos with tips on workflow etc. He doesn’t post often (he puts loads more stuff on his blog) but what he does post is always worth watching. He hasn’t posted for a while but its worth going through the back episodes.
* video podcasts. Various lengths, mostly quite short. Infrequent.

The Art of photography – by Ted Forbes
This comes out quite frequently (1-3 times per month). I haven’t watched any of the Holga update ones (I’m not really into old film cameras). He does some nice ones where he introduces you to a photographer you may not have heard of, usually shows you their book. He seems to know a lot about photography history. He’s done a few practical ones about framing which were interesting.
* video podcasts. mostly around 15mins. frequent.

Martin Bailey Photography
Martin does behind the scenes on his shoots. Gear & software reviews. Photo critiques. Interviews with other photographers. Info & photos from his trips.
*various formats, various lengths. Frequent.

The naked photo
There’s only 5 of these but I really enjoyed them. I’m keeping it on my list in case Riaan de Beer decides to do any more. Each one takes a famous photo an really looks at it in detail. Also providing the history behind how the photo came about. I watched the Churchill one first & was hooked.
* video podcasts. mostly around 30mins. Seems to have stopped.

Tony Wu underwater photography:
This one is less formal (ie no set episodes). Tony updates this as and when he has new stuff to add. He takes video & stills underwater so sometime he shows those. Sometimes it’s chats with other photographers or editors. He shoots a lot of whales so there’s a bit of info about that.
*various formats, various lengths.various frequency.

The Grid
This is the only podcast I watch with adverts in it. The ads sponsor the show but they are still very off putting so I run them forward where I can. Having said that Scott & Matt & guests are often very entertaining.
* video podcasts. mostly around 80mins! frequent.

For video:
- Final cut pro x tips & tricks – by Jerad Hill
Ive just got a gopro so I find this useful

- producing video podcasts. Useful tips & tricks

Not photography:
- dive film hd videos. Videos from underwater videographers.
- wild oceans. Part of the earth touch series, beautifully shot nature podcasts. Underwater.
- earth touch weekly highlights. Part of the earth touch series, beautifully shot nature podcasts.
- TEDtalks. A variety of interesting presentations.

If you watch any good photography podcasts you’d like to recommend me then add them in the comments….

Versatile Blogger Award

Dan Law from theRawEdit.com has very kindly awarded me with the versatile blogger award. Thanks Dan! Actually it was for my other blog but since that one for my degree course I didn’t think it appropriate to post this on that one.

What is the versatile blogger award you ask? Well here are the rules:

• Thank the person who gave you this award. That’s common courtesy.
• Include a link to their blog. That’s also common courtesy — if you can figure out how to do it.
• Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. ( I would add, pick blogs or bloggers that are excellent!)
• Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award — you might include a link to this site.
• Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

so a bit like one of those chain letters you’d get in school! Ah a bit of nostalgia. So 15 blogs huh? I can’t say that I follow 15 blogs religiously. I follow cool people on twitter who have excellent blogs that I go and look at. And I find new blogs to look at and follow when people like my blogs posts (what a great feature, I’ve found so many interesting people that way recently). These are the blogs of the people who first come to mind….

Cool blogs that I follow (in no particular order):

The stormtroopers are coming! A photo blog from Michael Toye full of awesome photos.

grafphoto blog Thoughtful posts by photography Mark Graf

jmg-galleries.com blog Blog of photographer Jim Goldstein

hovercraftdoggy.com Architecture. Design. Photography.

zackarias.com blog Cool photographs of people. Down to earth photographer that says it like it is.

pixelatedimage Another thoughtful photographer/blogger, David duChemin.

petra365.wordpress.com You guessed it, another photography blog, most if not all of these listed here will be.

emilyluxton.co.uk I like her photography category – always great with the exhibition reviews.

lefft.com Designery things and very cool graphics by Paddy Donnelly

smashing magazine Web Design.

….And that’s all I can think of right now – so apologies if I didn’t include you – its late on a friday night and my brain is tired.

7 Things about myself (again, no particular order):

• Fish are my friends and not my food.
• I love cats.
• I’ve just started a photography degree (which was the blog that actually got nominated by Dan).
• I live with the most wonderful person.
• I love to travel but hate camping
• I still have my sparkly Christmas penguins out from last Christmas.
• I prefer dark chocolate.

So, I hope you’ve enjoyed this silliness as much as I have… if you have a cool blog you think I should know about let me know on twitter, I’m @scuba_suzy. Goodnight everyone!