Antibes Antics

I am at the Antibes Festival and online courtesy of their Wi-Fi.

I will do some sort of official review at the end, but I thought I'd post bits of gossip as I hear them.

Today is the first day of the festival and I have been taking it easy. Trying to relax into it and save looking around properly until tomorrow. But a few things I could not resist:

First I went to Seacam with fellow wetpixel member Steve Jones. Harald showed us the D2X housing. Which is very sexy. The control for the image review and delete is very inivative. And the 45 degree finder doesn't block the LCD significantly (which is not clear from the photos). The viewfinder is nice, and Harald was keen to stress the field-interchangability of their viewfinders. I still think that the lack of labels on the buttons on the back is a drawback compared to the Subal and Aquatica. But the quality of the finish on both the materials and controls is truly impressive.

Seacam also had their new strobe here. Very powerful and D70 and D2X iTTL compatible. Apparently it has up-dateable software so it can be made to work with the D200 if this is a different iTTL protocol again. Seacam are thinking very clearly in these digital days.

I have already met lots of interesting people, but the highlight for me was having the chance to have a good chat with Laurent Ballesta. I respect a lot of UW photograhers. I love the work of a lot of underwater photographers. But there are few that are currently shooting stuff that totally blows me away. Laurent is one of the two or three in the world that fit that category. His new book "Planete Mers" is out at the Festival and I will be buying one once I have some money (all my money is now behind the bar. I was a little star struck in meeting him - but he knew who I was, which was cool. He is still shooting film, but scans and post processes his images if he need too. Laurent is not that well known outside of France.

I was also surprised to meet Bence Mate here. He is one of the world's best wildlife photographers in my opinion and he is still only a kid:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/tem...05&category=575

I had a quick chat (as I had met him last week at the WPOTY). Still not sure what he is doing here.

Anyway Biere has run out so I must get back to the bar.

Alex

I always get such a groundhog day feeling here at the Festival. There are so many familiar faces, and all the same stands are in the same places year after year. It certainly helps you relax straight into it.

Last night I went up to the Grand Pavois and feasted on the magnificent buffet up there. Amos Nachos is on fine form - and is full of the spirit of the Festival. He was even wearing a comedy frenchman outfit last night. Some of his photos are up here and they are stnning. I think that he is the best example to photographers of how to edit your work. He releases very few images - but they are all totally awesome pictures of totally awesome creatures.

Anyway - time to get cracking on the festival on this fine friday morning. More later.

Alex

Wow. This such a great event. Although not good enough to stop me taking a long lunch and heading to the beach for an hour today. My goodness the water is chilly. Well compared with the last bit of sea I tried in Cayman.

I had a good look round the colour print and black and white print displays today. They are a real disappointment compared with how they used to be. The problem, as I am keen to explain to anyone who will listen, is that in 2003 they changed the rules. Previously each competitor was allowed to enter 3 colour and 3 B&W prints. Now it is just one of each.This means that there are less images by the top photographers on display and less risky/creative shots because with just one photo everyone is playing it safe. There are some awesome shots in there, but you have to hunt about for them. Across the festival they have competitors from 50 different countries - but the print display really doesn't reflect this. I recognise many of the images (from other competitions and websites) and I think the winner will be Italian!

I also got my copy of Laurent's book today. And it made me feel sick. The photography is so so good. Wow. He was already one of my top 2 photographers when I had only seen a few of his shots. He is now clearly number 1. The book is the best collection of UW images I have seen for ages and if it was in English and he was American it would be as big as Within A Rainbowed Sea or Water Light Time. It really is that good. Any underwater photography enthusiast who doesn't buy Planete Mers before the end of the year is missing out massively.

Other than that the festival motors on. Mike Portelly and Hans Hass are presenting this evening. Which I am looking forward to. But first I have an appointment with some Kronenberg!

Alex

So who became your second favoUrite?

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the reports. Interesting to hear your thoughts on the displays and photos. I think a "Good luck" then might be in order??

Rand

Alex -- any leads on where we Americans can order such a book?

Eric

Amazon.fr has it. I preordered one last week. Have to support the froggie. Maybe get him to go digital one of these decades.

Amazon.fr

Alex

if you want a very cool place to chill after the fest, try going to Cap d'Antibes to the beach at La Garoupe. Very special place with wonderful restaurants. I can't remember the name of my fave restaurant right now but there are only a handful of them there and each of them are special... plus the atmosphere is riviera magic. Chicks love the place

Ala Hemingway's book "Garden of Eden" eh scubadru? :-)

Cheers

James

Hmmm, was garden of eden based in Cap d'Antibes? I thought it was Camargue! Obviously I don't want to end up like the main characters did. Although there isn't anything wrong with driving around the Cotes d'Azur in an italian exotic and 2 beautiful women. Closest I got was a german car, my girlfriend and my aunt.<_<

Anyway, that book wasn't really hemingway... I think Scribner took too much licence in editing.

Well I'm only just getting into this one new Dru - scraping the Hemingway bottom of the barrel I guess. You are correct, they aren't specifically in Cap d'Antibe - but pretty close I think.

Cheers

James

Well it is Saturday morning now. And as usual for this time of the week my head hurts. Friday night was a most enjoyable evening.

I started off by attending the soiree organised by the Our World underwater Scholarship Society. Temped by the fact they had free champers and, of course, that I am supporter of the society - having hosted both European and US scholars at various times. Both last year's European Scholar Pheobe and the current Scholar Vibe gave excellent talks in front of what must have been a very intimidating audience. So many big names there. Just for example I was standing next to Daniel Mercier the organiser of the Festival, Michael Aw (photographer and publisher), Ralk Keifner (photographer whose name I can't spell) and Andy Byatt (producer of the Blue Planer). Actually Andy did the run to the bar to get the drinks. Anyway I had decided not too name drop too much, so sorry about that. But that was really who I was standing next too.

Anyway a few of us slipped out at 8pm to catch the special event: "An Evening with Mike Portelly". Mike is a hugely artistic british photographer and film maker, whose 1980 film Ocean's daughter is still incredible. I am not that big a fan of the artistic or mood films here at the festival, but Mike's film is amazing. A must see. It is available now on DVD. After the film Mike said a few passionate words about the future of the oceans and the Antibes crowd rose to their feet to give him a thoroughly appropriate standing ovation.

After Mike's film there was supposed to be a short film presented by Hans Hass - made by an Austrian production company about him returning to the Maldives aged 86 after the Tsunami. Unfortunately Hans Hass did not attend - and I couldn't follow the french quickly enough to find out why. In anycase this film was not good and realy shouldn't have been presented as part of the special evening.

After that it was off to the buffet with the gang and then back here for a bit of music before hitting the bars in town. The Festival is officially open until Midnight (you have to love the French) so it is always worth coming back here for the Jazz/Blues band.

Anyway I have a hangover to see off. I'll rport back later.

Alex

ahh hangovers....

I had one myself this morning, mmmmm dry heaving at 60 feet...fun!

Aren't we the resposible mods eh?

Sad to hear about Hans Hasse, would have been great to have seen him speak.

Keep the updates comin, Hair of the Dog me boy Hair of the Dog...

Congratulations Alex, you made it again this year.

As a poor substitute for being there I looked at the winners'list on :

http://www.underwater-festival.com/fr/dire...LMARES_2005.pdf

Alex won the Bronze in the slide category. A Mexican photographer won first place in the colour photo category and the B & W went to well-known Michael Aw.

Reading Alex's report makes me so sad.... nothing replaces the incredible company found at this event.

Not being there means that Kurt also had the drumset for himself.... until next year!

Drink a Pastis for me Alex and see you hopefully at the 2006 edition!

Michel

Slide category?!?!

Yes, they label it as "slide"... Alex can probably shed some light on this mystery once he emerges from the Sat. night party vapours...:-)

Michel

Sorry for the lack of reporting. But too much awesome stuff happening in Antibes (we didn't stop drinking until 05:30 this morning, although because of daylight saving that became 04:30). It is a wonderful, fabulous event and I was so sad to have to come home. I made so many new friends and was shocked how many people knew me (even without reading my name badge!).

I was pleased with my Third in the slides, but not thrilled because I wanted to win! Everyone says you always need exciting big creatures to win this one, and I didn't have them. But in all honestly I am really chuffed as the 10 slide portfolio is the most important image category - and the only one that is sent out by the organisers to the press (the prints aren't). Although I have just looked on the website and my slides aren't up there. Damn them. Anyway there is no shame in coming third behind San Felix and Mirko Zanni.

I entered the 10 slide portfolio because as I've said above this is the most important stills category. And I think I am the first person to win a trophy with shots taken on digital slrs. One thing that really struck me in Antibes is how most of the top photographers are still on film. i asked the organisers if they accepted digital files made into slides and they said of course, but I still kept the adjustments on my slides to only RAW conversion - as I thought the judges would react badly to images that looked manipulated. My slides were nice, but the colours weren't quite right in the blues (I am making excuses again, sorry).

Anyway enough about me.

The highlight of the awards for me was actually seeing good sense and justice served and seeing Monsieur Ballesta's book with the undersea image book. It had stiff competition from Stephen Wong's book and the Scubazoo book. But Laurent's book is miles ahead of the competition (and not just those books in the competition). Just buy it. Open it up on any page and you will see.

As I said before the judging, the prints left me a bit underwhelmed. And Jellyfish seemed to dominate the winning films. But I didn't see any so I can't really comment.

Most of all I really enjoyed meeting other photographers and chatting about this and that. I am a big fan of many other photographers work, and it was fantastic to meet people I have admired for many years. Many photographers were also keen to quiz me about digital - and there was lots of enthusiasm for filter photography. Apparently the Magic Filters were even mentionned in the Photoshop session run by Adobe France!

As many of you might have heard there is some uncertainty over the future of the Festival - as the venue is being rebuilt and it will have to move next year. Gossip suggests it will be in another small town in the region. But I think that they are delaying decisions to see quite when the building work actually starts.

Finally I must mention another star of the Festival - Amos. He was definitely the personality of the festival. Always chatting, always smiling. Real life and soul of the party (I won't go in to details, but I have photos of the dancefloor). Interestingly he told me that he has just switched from Nikon to Canon (although not to digital). Although he anticipates doing that soon. I really want to see the subjects he shoots taken with the filter.

Anyway I have a hangover from hell. The plane flight home this morning was almost unbearable! But thanks to Steve Jones we have loads of great images of the festival - and I will do an official report in a few days.

Alex

p.s. But best of all is the amazing social atmosphere - where everyone has time to talk. On Saturday afternoon I met Jerome (fellow Wetpixelite) outside the theatre and he wanted a filter. We had a look at the black and white prints together for about 30 minutes. And he said he wanted a filter. I wasn't really pushing these at Antibes, but I had a couple of packs back in my hotel room. So I said I go and get them for him. Anyway I bumped into Jerome about 1 hour later and I had only made it 20meters and hadn't even crossed into the second tent. Every step there is someone you really want to talk to. And for once in our lives, due to the unique nature of the Festival atmosphere, everyone has time.

Congratulations Alex. Only 3rd...Hmmm

I look forward to seeing your portfolio of images. Converting them to slides probably has some effect on the images I'd assume. Sounds like you had a great time, would love to go some day.

Rand

Well actually I think that the winner, Manu San Felix is also a digital shooter. So I can't use that excuse any more.

Alex

Congrats on the placing. Certaily some lofty competition. I bet you out partied them though

Kudos again!

Congratulations on the medal Alex! I want to attend some day too, but only when I have something nice to show. Maybe in 2-3 years in the new venue.