DIGIDEEP’s first European Open

The participants, coming from Germany, Denmark and Sweden, arrived during the afternoon and evening of September 22. When all of us had arrived, Anders and Victoria gave a short presentation about the dive center, the boat and what to expect during the days to come. Then Andi Voeltz from Digideep continued by welcoming all participants and explained the plan for the next three days. Everybody seemed to be very eager to get into the water and to shoot nice pictures. As only few people knew each other we started by making a short introductory round, where everybody explained their expectations, their skills and experiences. Ingvar Eliasson from Kalmar, Sweden, gave a very nice presentation about his last exhibition and presented some of his enlargements made from digital originals. This was an excellent way to get everybody in the right mood for the upcoming shootings. As most of us were quite tired from the travel and we needed to get up very early next morning the evening didn't last that long, but still we found some time to chat about the latest digital underwater photo gadgets.

On the next day, Anders gave a quick briefing after breakfast and everybody got their gear ready for the boat. It was a short walk from the dive center to the harbour and the two boats of Dyk-Leif. The Digideep group was to use the big boat for the competition and Anders was kind enough to mount the Digideep banner on the front of the boat. Unfortunately the weather was a bit cloudy in the beginning, but still great for diving. Our first destination was "Södra Ärholmen". This site had a nice wall, where you could find a lot of Dead Man's Finger (Alcynium digitatum) and crabs. At the end of the dive you came to a shallow part, which was filled with sea weed and small critters. Fortunately the sun came out and the sun rays created a very nice atmosphere to this scenery.




After the first dive the weather became better and better. The sun completely pushed away all the clouds from the morning and we could have a nice picnic lunch on the Weather Islands. Viktoria prepared splendid Thai food, which is a tradition that was introduced by the former owner of Dyk-Leif and his wife who was originally from Thailand. It was a bit strange to have Thai food in the rocky environment of the Weather Islands, but it surely made it an exclusive event. After lunch, we had enough time to relax on the smooth rocks in the warm sun. (Maybe this was a bit like Similan Islands after all?)


The group then divided into two teams. Some decided to try a very shallow, almost snorkel dive in the harbour area of the largest island of the Weather Islands and try some macro photography. The others went to "Stora Manskär". Unfortunately the visibility there was not that good as on the first dive.




On the way back to the harbour of Hamburgsund the sun covered the lovely rocky coastline in a warm light. Everybody was chatting about the pictures and the nice day we had had. Back at the dive center everything was quickly cleaned and packed for the next dive to have more time for the important stuff: watching the pictures. The big table in the dining room was filled with laptops very fast. Viktoria had a hard time getting our attention to tell us that she would need some space to serve dinner. After an excellent dinner, Andi gave a presentation about digital workflow and raw files. At sunset, it was back to business again; We aimed at the island "Vedholmen" for a night dive. Almost everyone joined and enjoyed the opportunity to meet the night active lobsters, squat lobsters and other night-active critters. This gave some excellent macro opportunities.

The second day welcomed us with bright sun and blue sky! We quickly had breakfast and then started to go to "17-metar'n". The dive site has it's name from the fact that it is almost exactly 17 m deep where a platform starts. The platform has a slope on one side with some nice rock formations. Finding your way down to a clay bottom at about 35 meters, you can find a rare coral named Phosphorescent Sea Pen (Pennatula phosphorea).




Our lunch was again on the Weather Islands where we could enjoy a perfect sunny day in September. It is not very likely that the weather is that good at this time of the year, so we had good luck!
After a relaxing nap we headed to "Lilla Knappen" a dive site on the most northern part of the Weather Islands. Because we had some current we had to jump quite quickly. The dive began with a canyon which led to a depth of about 25m. Then you turned and could enjoy some nice rock formations. Both the canyon and the rock formations where covered with a lot of oar weed (Laminaria digitata) and surrounded by many kinds of fish. This dive site was definitely my favourite!




Back at the dive center Viktoria prepared an awesome dinner with plenty of freshly cooked Norway Lobsters (known also as Dublin bay prawns, Prawns, Scampi or Langoustine). It was a long dinner because everybody enjoyed the fresh prawns, the beer and wine, and the continuously ongoing discussions about digital underwater photography. After lunch I gave a short presentation on digital photo editing and archiving. Then everybody had free time to prepare the pictures for the contest. This turned out to become a late night session, because everybody wanted to get the best out of the pictures. At one occasion, we caught Ingvar sitting and sleeping in front of his screen, hand-on-mouse, frozen in a last desperate attempt to clone away some backscatter from a picture. Did we even hear a snore?

Our last day started very early. I started collecting the images from the participants. Then we arranged the voting session, as we had decided to have a peer-to-peer evaluation of the pictures, rather than a professional jury. All in all, 25 pictures had been submitted for evaluation. After the voting session, Andi and I calculated the total score for each picture and could present the winning pictures.

It must be said at this point that the overall quality of the images was very impressive. I didn't expect this from the cold waters of the North Sea. The conditions were not easy, but still the shootout ended up with some really great shots.
However some shots were winners; Riki Virc from Malmö, Sweden, won the first place with a supreme jellyfish photo. Congratulations Riki, well done!
[All Contest images]