Won a Palme d’Or at the The World Festival of Underwater Pictures at Marseille
Me with my award in front of a Jacques Cousteau poster
Just got back from the 37th The World Festival of Underwater Pictures in Marseille. This was the first year I participated, submitting shots for the color photography, black and white photography, portfolio (10 pieces) and website categories. To be completely honest, I was a little disappointed to find that my photography work was ranked middle of the pack in just about every category (and rightly so), but I was overjoyed to find that I had won the “Prix du Site Web Artistique 2010″, which is for the most artistic web site of 2010. You can see the results here: http://www.underwater-festival.com/. It’s in French, but my name and site are listed.
It was great to come home with something, and I learned a lot from the experience. Now all I have to do is get back to work on my photography. It’s a pretty tough competition, and I have a long way to go to get where I want to be with my photography work…
I just want to say thank you to everyone who supported me and encouraged me throughout the last year, especially my family, and of course all of the good people over at the CIPA; without whom none of this would have been possible.
By the way, I’m not the only one from the CIPA who came home with an award. Guillaume Nery managed to win the “Prix d’Insolite” for his “Free Fall” film. Congratulations to Guillaume for yet a another award for his beautiful film. Watch the film here.
Below are the photo submissions that I submitted to this year’s competition:
That’s Show Biz Baby!
Well, TF1 sent over a camera crew a few weeks ago to film our club (the CIPA) and Guillaume Nery. They filmed for about 3 hours and took a ton of footage. We were pretty excited that everyone from our club were going to get onto french TV. As it turns out, once the story aired, they only aired approximately 4 seconds of the footage from our little sortie. The whole segment was about Guillaume and his freediving the Dean’s Blue Hole clip. As disappointing as it was, Guillaume is a truly exceptional diver, and he deserves the limelight.
As it was, I showed off the clip to my parents and told them about how I was in the background somewhere during the 4 seconds of footage. We had a good laugh when we saw it. I guess that’s just how it works sometimes. As they say, that’s show biz, baby.
The actual footage is below. You can see the members of our club for just a second on the surface of the water just after the jellyfish swims by.
Weekend Shots, TF1, Oeuf Au Plat, Wide Angle Issues, and More…
TF1 Cameraman shooting the CIPA this weekend
Well, this is going to be my last post for a bit. I might pop on to link to the CIPA TV appearance if it gets online, but no photos for a few weeks since I will be “state-side” until mid-sept.
TV appearance you ask? There was a news crew that came out for one of the major French TV stations (TF1) on Saturday to film the CIPA (my diving club). I assume there were mostly there to catch Guillaume, but they were shooting the whole club, so I think I’ve got a good shot to make my French national TV debut in the near future. I have no idea when the piece is going to air, but I will post it when I get it.
Other than that, the weekend was a good mix of awesomeness and frustration. I had a great couple of outings this weekend, with lots of stuff to shoot, but I had some issues with my new replacement Fantasea BigEye G Series lens that made me miss a lot of shots. I chipped my old one (which I NEVER had a single issue with), and I had to pony up to get it replaced since I found it an incredible tool. To make a long story short, my new one came, and it seems to have either some errant moisture inside it, or some sort of subtle chemical stain on the inside of the glass that likes to ruin photos. It is not fogging that I am having a problem with. Moderate fogging I could probably deal with; it is a definite defect that really sucks. I have reached out to Fantasea technical support to get it resolved, and I will keep you all posted as to how it goes. [Update: I posted an email to support, and they responded within a few hours on a Sunday, which is a good sign. They asked for a receipt, and a photo of the defect, which I promptly supplied.]
“Méduse œuf au plat”, or egg jellyfish
Last but not least, after having seen my first “Méduse œuf au plat”, or egg jellyfish a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon at least seven that I counted earlier today. When it rains it pours I guess. As of a few weeks ago, I had never seen one, but now I’ve seen at least eight in the last few weeks. I wasn’t too pleased with my shots from last time, and while not perfect, I am quite a bit happier with the ones I got today.
Enjoy, and I’ll be back with more shots in late Sept.
I Guess Guillaume Has Gone Viral…
Well, I saw the Guillaume Nery base jumping at Dean’s Blue Hole Video on our club forums about a week ago, and thought it was a very beautiful and well executed work, but I didn’t really think much about it after that.
Would you believe it, today, I am on the phone with one of my employees from Wisconsin, USA, and he says to me “I saw this really cool video over the weekend of this guy base jumping underwater.” I immediately knew what he was talking about,a and when I swung over to youtube, the video had over 620,000 views. Pretty impressive. Plus, my employee was pretty astonished when I told him that he was our club president. Small world, huh?
If you haven’t seen the video, swing over to his blog and check out the video. It is seriously a nicely executed dive piece.
I have been getting quite a bit of traffic from people searching for Mr. Nery since this video came out, so for those who are interested in learning more about him and the sport, here is some info: Guillaume is a world champion free diver, and recently set the French depth record for apnea (free) diving at 115m (377 feet) in the constant weight class. For more info on Guillaume, here is his home page. I also wrote a short piece on him not too long ago here where I go into some of his other accomplishments, and there is a pretty good video there. You can find a ton of videos about Guiallaume Nery on his videos page: http://guillaumenery.over-blog.com/categorie-10432728.html.
He also has a ton of videos about him on youtube. I really enjoy this one.
It’s really great to see him getting all the press. If you find that interesting, and you don’t know anything about the sport, you can learn a little about it at Wikipedia. If you are in Nice, France, and want to try it out, you can click on the CIPA (our club) link to find a nice place to learn. It is a great sport, and very fun. Just remember, don’t EVER, EVER, EVER try it alone, or don’t try to attempt it without proper technique and security training. It can be very safe if done correctly, but if done incorrectly, it can easily be fatal.
Below is a well done clip discussing in-depth some of the dangers of the sport:
NSUC: Samba and Blackouts from USFA Inc. on Vimeo.
See Guillaume Néry, World Record Freediver And President of CIPA
Guillaume Néry
[Update: For those of you looking for where to find Guillaume's Base Jumping Dean's Blue Hole Video, click here]
Guillaume is the President of the CIPA (my diving club), as well as a world champion free diver, recording depths of 113 meters (370 feet). He recently took bronze in the Bahamas at the free diving world championships in the no fins category, achieving a depth of 78 meters (256 feet). The following video is a short preview of a 52 minute documentary on the Orange Sport Channel this year.
I saw it earlier this week, and am really excited to post it, not only because it is pretty cool stuff, but it actually shows my hobby in detail. In it, you can see the beach near my apartment (very beginning), my club, the boat I take for free diving, several members of my club, several people I train and dive with, the places I dive, and even the very set of fins that I bought off one of the members of the club (I bought them off of him after this film was shot). It’s not about me, but the first 5 minutes of the video are really, very close to my life here in Nice. These are the places I go, and many of the people I see. It’s all in french, but for those of you who only speak English, enjoy the pretty scenery!
DEEP BLUE – L’apnée selon Guillaume Néry from Mi Ka on Vimeo.
Update: after the fact, I realized I should put a link to his blog for everyone to check out: http://guillaumenery.over-blog.com/.
