Another Funny Canon and Fuji Mix Day

Dave and Pete came back to complete their course last Tuesday evening, having finally got to grips with all the new controls that their new cameras had given them! Before getting in the water, needless to say, they needed to re-sign their forms. Only thing was that I had forgotten to change the printer settings and the forms came out 46 inches wide!!! It took us all 15 minutes to stop laughing before getting in the pool! :)

They both did a cracking job and finished with some brilliant shots .....

Shark Day for Sian!

Apologies for the delay in keeping up-to-date with the blog, life is way busy at the moment trying to be in three places at once. Sian came to see me last Sunday with her new camera, a Canon Ixus and little did I know that Sian has a fabulous passion for our sharky friends as well. Raising money for Biteback and Sea Shepherd in her spare time, I couldn't wait to introduce her to my plastic sharks underwater, and needless to say they were on their best behaviour and she loved them! She got on really well, and am looking forward to seeing how she gets on in her future trip to Sharm :)

Fuji Photo Course Day - F40 and F50!

And today was the day to put my Fuji Hat back on for Kevin and John's visit to my studio to help them with their underwater photography. Kevin was stuck in Auto Underwater Mode (but doing a very good job with some beautiful composition shots taken with his Inon Wide Angle Lens) and John was stuck in Manual White Balance mode, but again doing a sterling job with some wonderful shots there.

They were on a three hour fast-track course and whizzed through the explanations of the different settings before getting into a much warmer pool to try out their new skills! John had a fantastic time playing with the ray whilst Kevin took some cracking up, close and personal shots of Mr Lionfish and his long lashes! They both progressed really nicely and confident in their new skills that will be going UK diving very soon to try them all out. Well done!

Canon Photo Course Day - The New G10 Revealed!

And what a cracking little camera this new Powershot from the Canon Range it is! George Moss visited me today to ask for my help in getting to grips with the many functions that this camera has as the 300 plus page manual had overwhelmed him! Never one to refuse a challenge, all was mastered within 2 and a half hours and George was happily playing around with his settings, feeling very confident in how exactly this little camera was thinking.

Time to get in the pool and again this camera did not disappoint. The focusing was excellent for close-up photography, the screen was larger than it's predecessor, the G9, and made it really nice to see underwater when reviewing images, punchy colours, and a great all round camera. The only disappointment for me is that, like it's little brother the G9, it is impossible to fit a wide angle lens on the front of the camera's housing..... But of course for the thousands upon trillions of nudibranch lovers out there, of course is wide angle lens is not necessary for great underwater photographs of these little guys!

Fantastic camera, George loved it, and here is a photo of my stingray! The beautiful turtle shot was also taken by George with his old Sony Cybershot with a red filter, just shows that gorgeous shots can be achieved with these older point & shoots. It's a real cracker of a shot!

Happy Snapping Everyone :)

London Diving Chamber Lectures - Royal Geographical Society

Every year the London Diving Chamber holds a fantastic evening of talks at the Royal Geographical Society. This year they had 460 year's worth of diving combined with Alex Hildred, archaeologist on the Mary Rose and tales of Tim Ecott's adventures, the author of Neutral Buoyancy. This event is held in support of the Scuba Trust - a charity devoted to giving people with physical disabilities an equal opportunity to experience the pleasure and excitement of scuba diving and the underwater world.

Last Thursday the place was packed, keenly listening to the tales and adventures of two fantastic speakers and seeing some wonderful video and photographs. Jules Eden from EMed gave a fantastic introduction as always and it was great to see all of the London Diving Chamber Team there and The Scuba Trust. £775 was raised for a brilliant cause and thank you to everyone who came that evening. It was great seeing you all and hope that you all got home safely in the snow.

My First Success in an Underwater Photography Competition

And it was with my 2 year old Fuji Finepix compact camera with an Inon Fisheye Lens on Automatic Underwater Mode which won the Bronze Medal in the hugely popular competition run by Underwater Photography.com competing with over 12,500 entries to scoop the third place in the Natural Light Category. The photograph was taken in Nuweiba (shown below of the pier) on last year's Photo Workshop with Emperor Divers, which is where David Kittos' photograph was also taken.

The date has just been confirmed for my next Photo Workshop there to help all of you take award winning photographs which is 22nd June for 7 nights on an all-inclusive basis at the Coral Hilton Hotel, so if you fancy lots of fantastic photo opportunities for a week as well as a day's diving in Dahab at their famous sites, just let me know. Have a peek on the Gallery Page for an insight as to the photo opportunities that await you. The trip is run in association with Emperor Divers and the Travel Agent for whom to book with is the award winning Tony Backhurst Scuba Travel. Drop me an email for more information.

Sport Diver Magazine - February 2009

Yes, it arrived on my doorstep and it seemed really strange opening it and seeing my cookie jar with a stuffed leopard shark on top being featured in an article by Martin Bruce and Patrick Shier from Sport Diver Magazine. I really don't like reading about myself in articles, but it was lovely to see how well Patrick has been doing with his photography on his recent trips to the Red Sea. The evening courses have proved particularly popular since the article came out, and my brownies and famous lemon cake are proving even more popular! :)

Talk for the Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard, London

I was extremely touched (and very nervous) at being asked to give a talk where I used to work for the Metropolitan Police at their Headquarters in London on 7th January. There was a really great turnout and after a few hiccups with my new laptop, all ran very smoothly. It was absolutely superb to be back and made me miss my old job there :(

Many thanks to Ian, Chanon, Steve, Jane, Kim, Zoe & Ben for their help in making this event so special and a special thanks to David for the invitation to go diving with the Met down in Portland. Just need the weather to warm up first!!! :)

David Kittos is Another Winner!

So, huge apologies for not keep up-to-date with my blog, I came down with that horrid bug that was flying around and as much as us girls can be good multi-taskers, there has simply been too much going on. So here is a huge rundown of what has been going on over the past few weeks.

First I was extremely proud that David Kittos won January's Photo of the Month in Sport Diver magazine with this beautiful shot of a lionfish. He worked extremely hard throughout the week to improve his photography and even said that the Photo Workshop which I ran in September in Nuweiba, Egypt was the best one that he had been on! A very well-deserved winner and look forward to seeing how he gets on in the future.