The drama of the 2006 Underwater Photo Shootout started on the weekend before it was due to take place. Sean Sequeira, and ex competition winner, while trying to practice, found that his camera wasn’t working. Following a sleepless night, he elected to drive all the way back to Johannesburg, get it fixed, and then return to the field of battle. Shootout people are made of stern stuff!!

During the day of Registration, Wednesday May 10th, the competitors arrived full of hope and expectation. However, those who had arrived early were rather full of foreboding. The one aspect that no-one could organize was the weather. The diving was terrible. The few brave (or foolish) photographers who had braved the seas encountered strong winds, breaking waves, high swells, vicious surges, low visibility and a strong reverse current. What was worse was that the local sages were predicting bad conditions for the Shootout days, little comfort for the organizers. In fact being responsible, as GUPS Chairman, for organizing the event I was reminded repeatedly of the 2002 competition where the winning shots were taken in rock pools and one prize was awarded for a photograph of a plastic frog in a bath! 

Despite all of this the registration and briefing went well, with few questions and most people changes and needs being accommodated. Greg De Valle gave his, now traditional, welcome and talk on how to behave on the reef including the video which had been prepared on the previous year’s Shootout. By the end of the evening, at least 80% of the competitors had registered. There was a rumour at the competition that the entrants were way down on last year. In fact there were only ten less, we had 95 competitors as opposed to 105 in 2005. This is against 70 for 2004 and a little over 40 in 2003. The Shootout is strong and well! Because of the bad diving on this, the first video day, Gordon Hiles the video convenor, announced that the video people could video on Friday and the deadline for handing in videos was extended from 5pm Friday to 6am Saturday, quite a concession from Gordon who now had only Saturday to compile the videos for judging, organize the judging itself, and then prepare the presentation for prizegiving the same evening. But more of that later.

Much to everyone’s relief, the next day, the first main competition day, dawned bright, the sea looked much calmer and most of the pessimistic sage predictions proved wrong. The conditions for photography, especially wide angled photography, were far from perfect but certainly acceptable. Visibility was 10-15m and the current was all but gone as was the swell. By the time people congregated for the evenings event it was clear that already good shots had been taken. The competition was on!

Friday was even better with diving conditions being even benign. The sun was shining, the sea was calm and viz was OK. To win, most of us hope for the lucky shot, and the lucky ones found it in the form of a friendly Whale Shark close inshore opposite Coral Diver’s shop. So while the rest of us were shooting shoals of yellow snappers and other common reef fish the lucky ones were frolicking photographically with the one of the leviathans of the sea. Other competitors found a Zambezi Shark. Some people get all the luck!

By dusk on Friday, the shooting was over. All the slide competitors could do was to submit their final films for developing. The digital brigade was already sorting through their millions of shots for the winning image. But for some, the work had barely begun. Taking video is skilful but editing, that is something else again. With the less than perfect conditions it was all in the editing and, having lost a day, many burned the midnight oil to produce the perfect video. The same can be said for those who had chosen to enter the creative digital class.

To backtrack, the event was organized along the same lines as last year. Sodwana Bay Lodge was outstanding in its help and cooperation and, at their suggestion, the Marquee was located on the old volleyball court near Leatherbacks. We had seven dive related exhibitors at the Marquee giving the Marquee the ambience of a mini dive show. In planning the events, the committee had decided to concentrate on informative talks and on the Thursday night DAN gave talks on dive related ear problems and the latest research on the physiological effect of diving.

Although Friday was the Sponsors’ evening, the Judge Convenor of images Chris Reilly told the participants what the judges would be looking for and Sharklife had a presentation on endangered species. There was also a talk on the advantages of re-breathers (for those who can afford them). The sponsors were also given a chance to promote their wares.

Saturday dawned sunny and bright but for most of the competitors the morning was filled with frantic choosing of images which had to be in by 11am. The video deadline had already passed with bleary eyed videographers submitting the fruits of their night time labours to Gordon Hiles by 6am.

While the judging took place, Scuba Pro demonstrated their re-breathers at the Lodge pool and many competitors took the opportunity to have a stress free dive. As usual, the committee had underestimated the amount of work needed to compile the winners and in particular, having lost a night to work on and judge the videos the programmed 4pm video show just didn’t happen. However, dinner had been served so by 7pm amongst remarkably patient people the main prize giving presentation took place, the delayed videos being shown first. Greg De Valle again did his charismatic thing as Master of Ceremonies.

As has come to be expected, the general standard of photography was again outstanding. In my capacity of Chairman of GUPS, I had explained the there was a special prize called “Judges Choice” for an image that stood out from the rest from all categories and this was won by Anthony Grote who also won the advanced digital class and the advanced video class! The slide advanced was won by Cornie Herbst. The creative digital was won by Steve Rubin.

This year, probably because of the poorish shooting conditions, many video competitors chose to enter humorous videos. One of these starred Divestyle’s own Johan Botha with his now familiar “Born to Dive” T shirt.

The competition once again afforded an opportunity for the  Sodwana Primary School to raise funds, the school prepared all the food as well as the bar with the generous support of Leatherbacks. In addition Firefish, who organised the T shirts and sold diving apparel at the Shootout gave all their profits to the School.

The organisers of the Shootout, GUPS, would again like to thank all the sponsors for their generous prizes and support and hope to see everybody back next year. 

A DVD has been compiled of all the images and videos and this is available for R120. Contact info@gups.co.za

REDMOND TAGGART
Chairman of GUPS, Organisers of the 2006 Underwater Photo Shootout