Digital UW Photo Workshop in Hamburgsund, Sweden

Eighteen enthusiastic divers were practicing their UW photo skills during a four-day workshop in Hamburgsund as Digideep organised their 2nd annual event in Sweden, this time with the theme “Photographing Marine Life”. The workshop was a nice mix of skills seminars, Photoshop workshops and great diving at Väderöarna, one of the most exotic dive spots in Sweden. Väderöarna is a small group of islands in the outer archipelago of the Swedish west coast, in the rich waters of Skagerrak.

The local organiser was Digideep associate Ingvar Eliasson from the dive club “Dykarklubben Kalmarsund” (DKK). We stayed at Dyk-Leif, a dive centre in Hamburgsund who provided all the practical necessities of life, including great food and an excellent dive organisation. The whole event was co-organised by DKK, Digideep and the Scandinavian dive magazine DYK, a collaboration that was successfully established last year at the 1st Digideep European Open Digital Underwater Photography Contest in september 2005. But as this was a workshop, the most important resource were the participants!

Most of the divers arrived in time for lunch. Anders and Viktoria, hosts of the Dyk-Leif Dive Centre briefed the group about the facility, the boats and the dive organisation. The dive centre is beautifully situated on a hillside, overviewing the harbour and narrow sound of Hamburgsund. To get down to the boats, we used two 4WD Volvos with trailers. Two boats were at our disposal, one big steel boat “Väderöfjord”, 13 x 3.9 metres and one smaller, open aluminium boat “Alma”, 6.3 x 2.5 metres. The divers were divided between the two boats. As it was rather windy, we decided to stay in the inner archipelago. This was also sort of a check dive, before “the real thing”. But all divers were trigger-happy and started off taking pictures from dive 1. The dive sites, Vedholmen and Klättrarna, were nice wall dives with rock formations at the bottom. Most dive pairs reported several lobster encounters during this dive.

Back at the dive centre, we had a nice dinner. And not any standard potato-based Swedish meal. Nope, the specialities of Dyk-Leif are Thai food and Swedish Seafood. And this evening, we got our share of Asian spices! The programme was tight, and directly after dinner we had our first seminar. Anders Salesjö, marine biologist and famous underwater photographer, gave two presentations on the local marine life of Skagerrak, one hour on fish and one on invertebrates. This was a good way of priming the participants on what to expect, where to look and how to approach the local aquatic wildlife. This concluded the day, and made the participants dream about nudibranches, gobies and hermit crabs.

Early rise, a steady breakfast and out to check the equipment and load the cars! The plan was to go for a full day, two dive trip to Väderöarna. It was pretty windy and we were a bit uncertain, but finally, Anders announced that we should stick to the plan, and off we went! The boat ride is a treat in itself, as you are slowly transferred from the cosy village of Hamburgsund in the inhabited archipelago setting to the barren rocks on the outskirts of the archipelago. The weather gradually became better and we had a fantastic day! The water was still warm, some 17 degrees Celsius, and the sun heated the rocks to a comfortable temperature. We made a morning dive, then went to a berthing place in one of the larger islands to stop for lunch and possibly a nap in the warming sun. We stayed on the island for approximately two hours before boarding the boats for the afternoon dives. The dive sites differ in character but basically, all dives are more or less drift dives on walls or rocky slopes, with a bright shelly bottom starting at 20-40 metres. The sites are ideal for macro photography, but when the visibility is good, there are also excellent places for wide angle shots.

Back home after dinner, we had an evening full of Photoshop exercises. For this purpose, we had rented the local “Peoples’ House” where all participants could sit at a table with their own laptops while a computer projector was used for public display to the whole group. This was a great advantage over last year’s setup, where we had to use the dinner table at Dyk-Leif for presentations. It was not difficult to fall asleep that evening. Snoring commenced after five minutes past bedtime…

Same procedure as yesterday, but new dive sites in a different area of Väderöarna. Martin Örnroth, chief editor of DYK, arrived at Dyk-Leif in the afternoon to spend some time with us. The treat of the day was the seafood dinner! As many prawns, shrimps and crabs as you could possibly eat, accompanied by salads, tasty dips and garlic butter toasts! In the evening seminar, Martin showed pictures from his latest trip to the Solomon Islands, and we had interactive discussions on equipment configuration, especially the placement of strobes. This evening, the participants were also invited to hand in a maximum of five pictures each. They should later be judged in a peer-to-peer manner.

Last day of the workshop, but still time for a final dive! But not for Ingvar, who stayed home to prepare a slideshow of the best pictures from the participants, for anonymous voting. When the boats came back, lunch was served and then we went down to the theatre for the voting. All participants gave marks from 1 to 5 on all pictures but their own, according to agreed criteria. The top ten pictures from the peer-to-peer voting are displayed here:

Place	Image	Score	Name
1		4,33	Peter Segerdahl
2		4,13	Joakim Andersson
3		3,93	Dan Isaksson
4		3,87	Kristian Soltesz
5		3,80	Kristian Soltesz
6		3,73	Kristian Soltesz
7		3,69	Agneta Fransson
8		3,60	Joakim Andersson
9		3,60	Jonna Bergstrom
10		3,60	Jonna Bergstrom

To conclude, the workshop was a very successful, as judged both by the opinion of the organisers, by the results of the workshop evaluation by the participants and from the owners of the dive centre. This is why we are proud to announce that the next workshop is scheduled for August 23-26, 2007!

[Gallery of all Participant Pictures]
[Topside Picture Gallery]