Back from Marseille and the Festival mondial de l’image sous-marine

World Underwater Photo Exhibition - Lots of Impressive Photos on Display

We’re back from the World Festival of Underwater Pictures in Marseille, and I have to report that it was pretty awesome. A good time was had, I learned a lot, and I only had to sit through one boring film. I won’t say which one it was, but I will say it had sharks in it.

Before I get started, I want to note that you can find my weekend photo gallery here: http://www.azur-diving.com/marseille09/

The photos were pretty great. Some were obviously better than others. There were some wonderful shots, but the shot that really got me was a black and white print with a free diver that was swimming next to an octopus. It was so gorgeous because the diver’s body was curved in a similar fashion to the octopus, echoing and complementing the organic shape. It gave me a feeling you can normally only have for a few seconds at a time when apnea diving. It is the feeling that comes when, just for a moment, you feel like  a part of the environment rather than an intruder. You can only know it once you’ve felt it, not really sure how to explain it. Anyways that was my personal favorite, and there were a lot of other great entries. Overall the photos were pretty solid, but I think that I can compete for sure next year. I don’t think I can win, but I feel like I should be able to put up a strong shot or two next year. I’m going to enter for sure though.

A few interesting notes from the show:

Underwater Photographer Cathy Church

Met world-famous marine photographer Cathy Church – It all started as we were passing by, and I heard her having trouble in conversation with an odd little Frenchman. She was trying to explain something in English, and he wasn’t understanding, so I helped out and explained it in French. Well, it turned out that she couldn’t get rid of him, and he was really quite disturbed (he wouldn’t leave her alone), so she asked us to help her and see if we couldn’t help to get rid of him peaceably. 30 Minutes later the man was happily on his way elsewhere, and I got her to explain a couple of her techniques in trade for the assistance!  It was pretty cool, I learned a bit, and got a few ideas for my own work. So it was definitely worth it. Thanks Cathy, and I hope the rest of the show went well. That was quite amusing, and added a bit of color to the whole thing.

Here’s a link to Cathy’s site. Check out her art Gallery, her stuff was one of the highlights of the show for me (her work is incredible): http://www.cathychurch.com/

François Sarano was there signing books

François Sarano, a member of the team responsible for the upcoming film “Ωceans” was there signing the release of the corresponding book – This guy is a legend, he spent 10 years on board the “Calypso” with Jacques Cousteau going everywhere and doing everything. After Cousteau died in ’97 he made a promise to give up diving and exploring, and decided to become a tourist guide. He couldn’t stay away however, and when he was approached by Jacques Perrin for this film, he eventually agreed, saying that “Jacques Perrin has completely changed my way of looking at the ocean. With him, it’s not about discovering the unknown; it’s about discovering what the sea evokes within us.” I, for one am, very excited to see this film coming out in 2010.

Ωceans official site here: http://www.oceans-lefilm.com/

My New Sea Shepherd Sticker!

Got acquainted with Sea Shepherd – This was great. We stopped by the booth initially because I thought their stuff was cool, and I wanted to nab a free sticker. Well it turns out the stickers weren’t so free, but they were cool enough that I bought one. Turns out that Sea Shepherd actually recruits people to go to places and actually DEFEND whales and dolphins. They investigate, report, and actively intervene in some cases. The gal we talked to was very, very into it. She was actually visibly trembling while she was talking about her love of the marine animals.

Check them out here: http://www.seashepherd.org/

Night view of Marseille from the Expo Center as we were leaving the show

Holy good pizza! – I have to give a huge shout-out to La Piazza Papa, a small chain that makes some surprisingly good chow. We were pretty hungry when we left the show, and stopped at that place just on the Old Port area, and MAN WAS IT GOOD! We actually ordered a second pizza to split after finishing the first one. That’s a first for me. I’ve never eaten a pizza and a half in one sitting before. It was that good. I could have just been that hungry, but we have one here in Nice. so I am going to go back and try it out. I’ll let you all know.

Calanques De Cassis

The Calanques De Cassis are worth a look – This area, just on the edge of Marseille proper, is really quite rocky and quite beautiful. It is basically a collection of deep rocky bays cut into the shoreline called “Calanques”. We spent the afternoon there, and it was quite incredible. It’s a lot of walking, so be warned. I just so happened to have my mask and a pair of trunks with me, and in 40 minutes or so in the water, I saw a plethora of different sea critters including a Mérou, an octopus, a sea-spider, and all kinds of anemones and fish. I want to go back in the summertime for sure.

I highly Recommend the Calanques De Cassis if you get a chance. I liked it quite a bit.