Your Favourite Photo of 2008

My favorite was from the bottom of the grand canyon. It was taken with a ND filter, and a makeshift tripod from a pile of rocks

This is easily my favorite photo of the year. Shot up in Port Hardy. There were un-countable numbers of jellyfish in the water. During a safty stop, I took a few pics of them as they floated by. While up-loading photos that evening, I asked Alex about the small critters that were clinging to some of the Jellys. He explained to me they were amphipods. I wanted to see about getting a good shot of them and spent the following dives shooting some on safty stops. A Redeye Medusa drifted by with something somewhat larger on top of it. Closer inspection revealed this small crab.

Rand

Some great shots there!

My favorite, not because I think it was my best, but because I was so excited to see it, especially on a wreck diving trip!

Taken at Santo, Vanuatu, directly over the President Coolidge. Sad thing was, I took it with my previous settup (G7). I'm doing some dives next week though, so I might even have another one to put in from my SLR in a few days!

Ryan.

This is easily my favorite photo of the year. Shot up in Port Hardy. There were un-countable numbers of jellyfish in the water. During a safty stop, I took a few pics of them as they floated by. While up-loading photos that evening, I asked Alex about the small critters that were clinging to some of the Jellys. He explained to me they were amphipods. I wanted to see about getting a good shot of them and spent the following dives shooting some on safty stops. A Redeye Medusa drifted by with something somewhat larger on top of it. Closer inspection revealed this small crab.

 

 

Rand

I love it. What an awesome shot!!

Here is mine, not my best but I still like it. Sadly lost all my photos this year after my hard drive went belly up or should I say drowned...... here is to 2009

I took this at the beginning of 2008 in St Croix, US Virgin Islands. We went in the water to photograph hamlets, but when I noticed this guy i forgot all about the hamlets and inched my way closer to him.

It's my favorite shot because it was unexpected. Taken with D2x and 105mm.

Wow, such beautiful photos....amazing. This is why I love this website so much, I learn. Thanks guys and happy holidays. I have two, one with my oly 350 and one with my new nikon d300.

Eagle Ray Bonaire, Nikon D300

Wakatobi house reef, Oly 350

What an impressive array of photos all!! Enjoy the stories & reasons just as much..

Taken in Ambon's harbor, at a site sometimes referred to as the Twilight Zone..I had been promised a rare daytime glimpse of Mandarin Fish on this site.Right they were. Under the jetty, past the Blue Ring Octopus,beyond the debris dumped by the local fish processing plant, sheltered in the filtered light, there in rubble covered by Black Long Spined Sea Urchins, the beautiful little dragonets fluttered a bout. When I first saw this pair rising above the spines, my first thought, after being skunked earlier on dusk dive, was Mating!! However closer inspection revealed that was not the case, and as the shutter clicked I worried about seeing a duel to the end.

Not my best photo, but by far the most fasinating behavior captured by me, and a definite favorite of 2008

Taken with an Olympus 330/Olympus housing/ 50mm lens/Inon strobes

Like others, not necessarily the best of the year, but it was my first outing with my new rig! Jellyfish Lake in Palau. Total luck - and a little cropping

What an impressive array of photos all!! Enjoy the stories & reasons just as much..

 

Taken in Ambon's harbor, at a site sometimes referred to as the Twilight Zone..I had been promised a rare daytime glimpse of Mandarin Fish on this site.Right they were. Under the jetty, past the Blue Ring Octopus,beyond the debris dumped by the local fish processing plant, sheltered in the filtered light, there in rubble covered by Black Long Spined Sea Urchins, the beautiful little dragonets fluttered a bout. When I first saw this pair rising above the spines, my first thought, after being skunked earlier on dusk dive, was Mating!! However closer inspection revealed that was not the case, and as the shutter clicked I worried about seeing a duel to the end.

Not my best photo, but by far the most fasinating behavior captured by me, and a definite favorite of 2008

 

 

 

Taken with an Olympus 330/Olympus housing/ 50mm lens/Inon strobes

I remember that exact dive! I got stuck at the blue ring..

Holy cow, Cor! Great moment!

Cheers,

Marli

My favorite is the most recent little manatee that I fell in love with, this photo is from 3 days ago. My husband dubbed him "Torpedo", because of the way he playfully darted around amongst all the other manatee. We have been observing him for over a month now - as I think it was mid-November when I first photographed him and his mom, who BTW really does seem to enjoy "showing him off".

Torpedo & Mom

Now I've seen Hammerheads at Blue corner and German channel but jelly fish lake??

Here's mine

After a chat with Martin Edge earlier in the year I wanted to play with dusk sunlight.

I found some Lionfish hunting siversides in open water on the housereef in Marsa Alam and 'Flailed Away' with the Tokina 10-17.

Not brilliant shots but with a yellowing sun against the blue water I was very pleased with the results.

Wishing all you 'Wet Pixies' a Merry Christmas

Nige Wade

I remember that exact dive! I got stuck at the blue ring..

Not a bad subject to be stuck with Mike, especially when you get it to yourself!!

Happy Holidays & Good Luck on the new venture with Simon in Lembeh..

Cindy

Rand> truly amazing shot of the jellyfish!

I have yet to visit tropical waters but here is one of my favorite shots from cold waters (4 degrees at the time of shooting).

Here's my favourite and its story. Taken about 15m down in Loch Fyne Scotland, the fish - a black goby - was peering into the discarded beer bottle when I first saw it. As I approached, the fish swam head first into the bottle, but being a rather fat fish it had trouble getting in and had to thrash its tail around to push itself into the bottle. After a couple of minutes I got this shot. Unfortunately, a designer commented that it rather looked like the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, contemplating the economic crisis from the depths of a bottle, and I'm reminded of this every time I look at the picture.

2008 has been a good year; many great shots for me and lots of good memories. Lots of time spent diving with new friends I've met directly or indirectly through Wetpixel.
Our favorite shots are not always the most technically perfect, but often those that do more on a personal emotional level. I do two very different things in my underwater photography - in a pool studio, it's all about visualization and control, in the wild it's all about trying to show something the way I saw and wondered at it.

In my pool work I've made progress in setting up my 'studio' and I have lots of ideas for 2009 with some pool shoots already scheduled for January. Here's one that shows some control of lighting and control by my excellent model.

Image removed at the request of the photographer.

In the wild, my favorite shot; is of the same subject as Carol's manatees. I think one of the hardest things to do underwater is to tell a story, unless it's something obvious like a dead finned shark.
For me the composition of this image tells the story of an ever watchful mommy manatee hanging in the background as her little one curiously checks me out.
Sun streaming through the water just the way I saw it, another difficult thing to convey underwater.
I'm also very pleased that the image is 100% available light, and my first outing with the D700.

Here is mine,

I took this photo on October in Elphistone. I didn't crop the image, after I took this photo with a Tokina 10-17mm it bumped my front port. It was a really cool experience swimming with the oceanics.

Nice images.

Here's mine