Curacao Dive Festival 2007 Live Webcast

Today on our first day of the Curacao Dive Festival we started our day with some diving to get to know the conditions and setting up our underwater photography gear.
The organization of Curacao Dive Festival is a little different to other events we've been so far. On the mornings and early afternoon the participants are free to take dives in different locations and dive sites around the island. This means that most of the time you rarely meet the approx. 160 participants along the day. This is good on the one hand to have good underwater photography possibilities and don't run into big groups, but on the other hand site the event character is a bit lacking. In the late afternoon there are presentation and lectures organized to various topics of diving and underwater imaging. In the evening there are some socialicing events to get to know each other and have a chat.

The opener for the lectures was made with a presentations from Marty Snyderman and Sue and Jack Drafahl in the Sea Aquarium and in the evening with the Beach Open Air screening of "Sharkwater". But on after another!
First Marty Snyderman held a presentation about the basics of underwater photography to an interested audience. He covered the main issues and problems of underwatergraphy and how to solve them. It was the first of two presentations he will hold at the Festival. After the presentation he answered some of the questions from the audience. An interesting statement from him was that some pictures can only be made with good equipment and if you don't have that equipment it's not worth trying to get the same result. So if you want to shot a certain picture get the needed equipment before.

After the lecture of Marty Snyderman the audience was introduced to the Photoshop universe from Sue and Jack Drafahl. Both wrote several books on underwater photogaphy and photoshop and give lectures on a very personal basis (classes with max. 4 students). The key points of the presentation were the 10 most important problems in underwater photography and how to fix it. Jack introduced the audience to some of the many possibilities how to fix the problems in Photoshop. Both emphazised that Photoshop should be the last resort to correct and enhance an image but should never be the tool to fix bad images. You should get good images in first place.

After more than two hours packed with underwater knowledge it was time to get some rest. So the crowd just moved over to the Hemingway Beach Bar of the Lion Dive & Beach Resort, which was just next to the Sea Aquarium and got a couple of drinks and food.

At 7:30pm the screening of "Sharkwater" began. This documentary movie about shark protection won several awards and will be in cinemas this autumn around the globe. Rob Steward tries in a very emotional style, with great images and with hard facts to correct the image of the sharks in public; to take away the fear of sharks from the public, because this fear holds back the public from speaking up against the shark hunting, which is a billion dollar industry and could possibly lead to the extermination of sharks, one of the most important player in the oceanic food chain. The documentation shows not only the terrible side of shark hunting, but also documents the corruption within the goverments in some countries. The 90 minutes are worth every single in terms of visual appearance and in documentation. A must see we would say.

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