Another cracking Dusi Canoe Marathon with excitement from the start in Pietermaritzburg until the finsh in Durban. Plenty of action from the top paddlers jostling for positions on day 1, but finally put to bed by the defending champs, Andrew Birkett and Jason Graham. Awesome paddling from all the top paddlers, including the woman paddlers, all of whom showed their class, and how incredibly fit they are. Chasing them through the valley makes me realise that it probably is quicker to go by canoe than it is to go by car! I do not think there is a single straight road in the valley, and driving at 60km/hr from a portage to a rapid to get the shots is hectic, especially when it is just a dirt track through the bush – hope and pray!

Action there was aplenty, from swimmers to broken legs, twisted ankles and near drownings. Getting sprayed by flippen helicopters hovering overhead was also irritating (no consideration when they know there are other photographers below), but on the whole it was a cracker. Always difficult to try portray the race in a different light, but hopefully I managed to get some different angles.

The home page gallery shows off some of the action, tears, tragedy and splashes. Enjoy til next year …

Dusi Canoe Marathon 2012

Got the news that Billy Harker was organizing an Ultimate Waterman series to generate some lively competition between the lifesaving circles. Decided to go venture into the waves sand see what angles I could generate as this was an ideal place to get the action, splashes and water movement at it best. Unfortunately the light disappeared fast due to cloud overhead, so decide to pump up the ISO to get a real grainy look. Then, with the help of some lightroom presents, pushed them into a unsaturated, black & white look for something different.

Looking at the pix afterwards, I got some of the images I had visualized, and others that were shot on the fly were pretty cool! Here are some samples …

Underwater fashion photography seems to be growing in popularity and more and more companies are using it in one way or another for advertising or simply for shop windows etc. It has never been something I have been too interested in shooting until I realized the popularity and figured it would be something fun to play around with. So I dropped a line to Olivia Symcox, who, like a true champion she is, agreed straight away to work with me on something in the pool.

I gathered numerous ideas together on what I wanted to shoot, but like all things underwater, they proved to be a little out of the scope of my pool. We bashed away at some shots, shivering and shaking while I shot from various angles trying to achieve what my minds eye had envisioned. Ultimately I wanted some shots which I could play around with in photoshop just to add a different touch to it rather than just plain shots.

It was a fun evening despite the fact that I did not really get the shots I had in mind but never-the-less got something to work with. Definitely a side to underwater photography that needs planning, the right environment and conditions, and a model that is capable underwater like Olivia (thanks to Olivia for being so keen to assist).

Check the Gallery for all the shots …

Watch this space for future ideas … got some in the pipeline!

A quick visit down ALiwal saw us playing with some Blacktip Reef Sharks again. Always fun and exciting fiddling with these creatures on the surface. No manners – pushing and barging in and out in order to get in the action. Stobes get bumped, dome ports get knocked and every now and then we get a good shot worth keeping amongst all the splash and bubbles.

Aliwal Shoal is well known for their sharks! We first dropped down into Cathedral to see what Ragged Tooth Sharks we could find. We were lucky enough to have 3 in Cathedral which stuck around for a while and then moved off as they got tired of our bubbles.

After that, we flirted with some deep water looking for some other action! We had perfect blue water but nothing else … that was frustrating!

Blacktip Reef Shark with wide open jaws

This last weekend I decided I need to get in some diving, and some good diving! Got invited up to Sodwana, so packed the gear and off we went …

Wow, was I pleased I went! The weather was looking iffy, but it turned out to be a cooker! Saterday the NE blew but the conditions under the waves were superb! To my disgust, I packed the macro lens for the first dive and hell, I regretted it! Top to bottom viz, lovely subjects and now I’m stuck with the macro. Anyway, made the best of it.

Sunday a front pulled in during the night which left us with overcast conditions, but flat seas. Now to hell with it, popped the 16-35mm lens on and off we went … Again, what a cracker of a day! 5 min into the dive I spotted a large octopus sticking its head out from under a rock. I popped the gopro on, drifted in slowly and watched. I was greeted with the usual flaring of colours, warning, so I just drifted back a bit and watched from a distance. When I saw it was emerging, I drifted in slowly again and watched as the octopus carried out sand and rocks, obviously clearing out a hole for itself, possibly to lay eggs. Every couple of minutes, I would drift away, watch, and then as it emerged move in slowly and get some shots as the octopus continually cleaned out the hole, dropped large mounds of sand about 2m from the hole. Absolutely fascinating … Will hopefully edit the video soon and pop that in here as well.

Another great weekend at Soddies. Definitely planning the next trip up. Next time will be with new strobes …