Wishing you a lovely Christmas and New Year

I really can't believe that another year has passed so quickly ... where on earth did it go to? So here is a special, special thank you to all my guests and to those who I have met travelling this year who have made it such a special year. I still can't believe how well my course guests have done with winning prizes, and another well done to Dave Baker, Dave Martin, Libby, Lin Henson, Ian Palmer, Alan Thomas and Daniel Norwood for doing such a sterling job! Wishing you all and your families a beautiful Christmas, a wonderful New Year and may 2012 bring you all you wish for and much, much more .... Can't wait to hear of all of your photo adventures already, so don't forget to look me up on Facebook and share them! See you in 2012!

Printing Your Photos On Canvas

So in amongst the craziness of moving belongings from London to Yorkshire, ploughing through paperwork, sending out DVDs and books I also picked up a my beloved large format printer again so that I could get back to printing guests' photos onto canvas! And it didn't disappoint with a gorgeous dazzling 12 ink colour system to really bring out the vibrancy of my guests photos. Here are a few of the prints which I have made for guests as Christmas gifts .... And here is the comment from Graeme Lockwood on receiving his! "Maria, received my canvas prints of the zebra lionfish and the wonderpus and they are fantastic! I am delighted with the way they have turned out especially considering the 'quality' of my original pics, lol, many thanks" I've really loved making these and am looking forward to getting back into the studio to finish making Lisa's order all ready for the New Year!

Alan Thomas wins Sport Diver Photo of the Month

I found this out on exactly the same day as my book started its journey across the pond to California! Alan Thomas wrote me a lovely email to say thank you for the advice which he picked up from my talk at the Dive Show at the Birmingham NEC in October and that it had helped him to win Sport Diver's Photo of the Month competition, taking it to Guest Number 6 and my third one this year! Unbelievable .... I will be posting the winning photograph of an octopus together with the letter that he wrote. Really am super touched and what a beautiful Christmas Gift ..... Thanks so much Alan for doing so amazingly well!

Underwater Photography Book heads to the USA

Tuesday 13th December is also a day that I will never forget! Backscatter in Monterey, California, whom I met at DEMA, the Dive Industry's largest trade show in the world a few weeks earlier, called me to ask if I could send them 20 copies of my book urgently as they had sold out! That night was spent personally signing every copy for my new american friends across the pond and as good as gold, my UPS friends came the next day to take my bubble-wrapped box on its merry way to the USA in time for Christmas .... I also had a really exciting call from a dive magazine over there ... so looks like more will be happening on that horizon very soon! Can't wait to hear what is thought of my book over there! I'll keep you posted! :)

My DVD is finally ready for shipping!

Friday 9th December will be a day that I will never forget! Not only was it the day that all my things were leaving Bromley in Kent to begin their long trek up to Yorkshire, but 100 copies of my DVD "Underwater Photography Made Easy for Compact Camera Users" had finally arrived! This project really touched me, it was super hard work writing, producing and filming it all in a matter of a few weeks, but Scubazoo really went flat out to help and do the very best that they could and despite all manner of things going wrong, it was really touching to receive this comment from Graham Bazley yesterday ... "Love the DVD. I suspect that i will wear the DVD out over the next 6 months. All your hard work has really paid off. I wish that I had this before my last Liveaboard. You have a really great natural presenting style that makes it so easy to watch. Thanks." Over £100 has already been raised for The School of Hope and the SEAS Project in Mabul ... and that has made me really happy! And one was sold on Christmas Day ... super touching to see that!

Underwater Photography Talk with Ocean Divers, Caterham, Surrey

So the following week took me to see the lovely club of Ocean Divers at Warlingham, Surrey, where they meet at a gorgeous Spanish Restaurant called "La Bodegita". The place was packed and there were plenty of divers in amongst them upstairs waiting for me! I was really touched, lots of compact camera users and gorgeous Spanish food which I love ... the photos will be coming very soon. We ran a photo competition and Kate won with a gorgeous photograph of a cave with rays of light shining through it. I really love giving talks to Dive Clubs and can't wait for the next scheduled talk which will be nearer my home in Sheffield with Diveworld Sheffield on 29th January! A special thank you goes to Paul Davies, Matt Wright and all the lovely members of the club for making me feel so welcome. I'll be running an underwater photography course with them on 3rd March in Caterham, so if you are interested, just let me know!

Underwater Photography Course in Leeds at Gomersal Park Hotel

So after another busy week catching up with paperwork and of course driving back from Wiltshire, it was time to help Ian and Paul with their underwater photography back in my Yorkshire home. And another new venue was on the menu today, the Gomersal Park Hotel! Paul Dobson was a returning guest, as so many guests this year have been. He brought with him a lovely Sony NEX-5 camera with a Fantasea Remora Strobe and got some fabulous results with it! Ian had with him a Canon Ixus and we had an absolute blast. The pool session was held at Robin Hood Watersports nearby and I bumped into my previous course guests who I had helped in London there! What a lovely surprise! Another really super day. Paul has already sent me some photos from his holiday to tell me how he has got on and I nearly fell off my chair when I saw them! I will post them on here as soon as I catch up with this blog!

Underwater Photography Course in Wiltshire

So after teaching Hannah on Saturday in London, it was time to head straight down the M4 and teach the owner of a children's swim school how to get to grips with his Sealife 1200 Elite System. This camera can do an amazing job on auto mode just by itself, and he showed me some fabulous photographs taken with the camera's wide angle lens and strobe. I helped him to get to grips with the camera's manual settings and a lot of fun was had. So much fun in fact that I almost drowned trying to pose graciously underwater! I have a feeling that his business will be absolutely roaring after just a few hours helping him with his underwater photography. Check out these pictures!

Underwater Photography Course in London, November with Hannah and Tom

So finally, I am getting time to catch up with my blog and what an amazing few weeks it has been since DEMA and finishing the DVD with Scubazoo in Malaysia. As soon as I got back it was time to head back down the M1 again to London to help Hannah get to grips with her Canon G12 Powershot. I had met Hannah at the Birmingham Dive Show and she was celebrating her 18th birthday. We had a lovely day with her father Tom at Amphibian Sports Dive Shop with the lovely team of James, Dee and Jody there in a newly decorated shop! We headed off to a private pool which is a less than 5 minute drive away and Hannah came back with these pictures on her first ever shoot just using the camera's built-in flash! I was really proud to see what she achieved in just a day and am looking forward to hearing how Hannah gets on in the future. Well done Hannah!